: 

OF    • 

TJNIVEB3ITY 


Reproduced  by  permission  of  Houghton,  Miff  I  in  &  Co. 
Publishers  of  Emerson's  Works. 


AMERICAN   LITERATURE 


BY 


KATHARINE    LEE   BATES 

WELLESLEY    COLLEGE 
AUTHOR  OF  "  THE  ENGLISH   RELIGIOUS  DRAMA  " 


gork 
THE   MACMILLAN   COMPANY 

LONDON:   MACMILLAN  &  CO.,  LTD. 

1898 
All  rights  reserved 


COPYRIGHT,  1897, 
BY  THE  MACMILLAN  COMPANY. 


J.  S.  Gushing  &  Co.  -  Berwick  &  Smith 
Norwood  Mass.  U.S.A. 


PREFACE 

IN  this  outline  of  our  literary  progress  it  is 
especially  designed  to  show  how  essentially  Amer 
ican  literature  has  been  an  outgrowth  of  American 
life.  A  people  originally  of  English  stock  and 
increasingly  open  to  European  influences,  we  have 
nevertheless  a  national  character,  modified  by  local 
conditions,  and  a  national  point  of  view.  Hence 
our  literature,  while  in  one  aspect  a  branch  of 
the  noble  parent  literature  of  England,  is  rightly 
viewed,  also,  as  the  individual  expression  of  an 
independent  nation.  Its  significance  to  us,  whose 
history  it  embodies  and  interprets,  naturally  out 
ranks  its  absolute  value  among  the  older  literatures 
of  the  world. 

It  is  obvious  that  the  limits  of  this  survey  forbid 
the  mention  of  every  distinguished  name. 

Sincere  acknowledgments  are  due  to  the  pub 
lishers  for  their  patience,  to  Mr.  Herbert  Putnam 
and  other  officers  of  the  Boston  Public  Library  for 


Vi  PREFACE 

their  courtesy,  and  to  my  colleagues,  Miss  Lydia 
B.  Godfrey,  Wellesley  librarian,  and  Professor 
Katharine  Coman,  for  bibliographical  and  critical 
suggestions.  The  portraits  of  Emerson,  Longfel 
low,  Whittier,  Hawthorne,  and  Thoreau  appear 
by  special  permission  of  Messrs.  Houghton,  Mifflin 
&  Co.  That  of  Irving  is  reproduced  by  permission 
of  Messrs.  G.  P.  Putnam's  sons.  Mr.  William 
Evarts  Benjamin,  too,  has  kindly  allowed  the  re 
production  of  his  plates  of  Lanier,  Parkman,  and 
Cotton  Mather,  while  for  the  likenesses  of  Lowell 
and  Mrs.  Stowe  we  are  indebted  to  the  friendliness 
of  Mr.  Francis  V.  Balch  of  Jamaica  Plain,  Mass., 
and  Mrs.  Samuel  Scoville  of  Stamford,  Conn. 

K.  L,  B. 


CONTENTS 


CHAPTER   I 

PAGE 

THE  COLONIAL  PERIOD i 

General  Divisions  of  American  Literature  —  Virginian 
Colonization  —  Captain  John  Smith  —  William  Strachey  —  *•* 
Development  of  Southern  Life  —  Dearth  of  Later  Colonial 
Literature  in  the  South  -4-  Earlier  Colonial  Period  in  New 
England  —  Early  Governors -f-  Early  Ministers  —  The  Tenth 
Muse  ~*-  Later  Colonial  Period  in  New  England  —  Samuel 
Sewall  — The  Mather  Dynasty  —  Jonathan  Edwards. 

CHAPTER  II 

THE  REVOLUTIONARY  PERIOD 52 

Aspect  of  the  Times  —  Benjamin  Franklin  —  Orators  — 
Statesmen  —  Poetical  Experiments  (Epics  of  Barlow, 
Dwight,  Trumbull,  Verses  of  Phillis  Wheatley,  Popular 
Songs  and  Ballads,  Drama,  Freneau's  Satires  and  Lyrics) 
—  Experiments  in  Novel  Writing  (Domestic  Novels  of  Mrs. 
Foster  and  Mrs.  Rowson,  Nightmare  Novels  of  Brown)  — 
Woolman's  Journal. 

CHAPTER  III 

NATIONAL  ERA:  GENERAL  ASPECTS 95 

From  Washington  to  Jackson  (Cultured  Presidents,  In 
dustrial  Independence)  —  Artistic  Promise  (Hunger  for 
Beauty,  English  and  German  Music,  Landscape  Painting, 
Indian  Drama,  Literature  of  Sentiment,  Knickerbocker 
School) — From  Jackson  to  Lincoln  (Log-cabin  Presidents, 
Westward  Expansion,  Material  Development,  Immigration, 


Vlll  CONTENTS 


Slavery  Question)  —  Artistic  Progress  (Literature  of  New 
England,  Diisseldorf  School  of  Painting,  Sculpture,  French 
•  and  Italian  Opera,  Buckskin  Drama,  Manners)  —  From 
Lincoln  to  McKinley  (Political  Lead  of  the  Old  Northwest, 
Utilitarian  Tendencies,  Immigration  Question,  Labor  Ques 
tion)  —  Present  Artistic  Conditions  (Educational  Expan 
sion,  The  Press,  Musical  Culture,  Art  Culture,  Technical 
Discipline,  Diffusion  of  Literary  Ability). 

CHAPTER    IV 

NATIONAL  ERA:  POETRY 137 

Bryant  —  Longfellow  —  Lowell  —  Holmes  —  Whittier  — 
Emerson  —  Other  New  England  Poets  —  Poe  —  Other 
Southern  Poets  —  Poetry  of  the  Middle  States  —  Western 
Poets. 

CHAPTER  V 

NATIONAL  ERA:  PROSE  THOUGHT         .        .        .    •    .        .    208 

Criticism  of  Life  (Unitarians  and  Transcendentalists, 
Emerson,  Margaret  Fuller,  Alcott)  —  Criticism  of  Society 
(Holmes) — Criticism  of  Letters  (Lowell) — History  (Ban 
croft,  Prescott,  Motley,  Parkman)  —  Oratory  (Phillips, 
Clay,  Calhoun,  Webster,  Lincoln)  —  Studies  in  Nature 
(Thoreau,  Burroughs). 

CHAPTER   VI 

NATIONAL  ERA:  PROSE  FICTION 266 

Adventure  (Cooper)  —  Humor  and  Pathos  (Irving)  — 
Mystery  and  Terror  (Poe)  —  Idealism  (Hawthorne)  — 
Realism  (Howells  and  James). 


INDEX  OF  AUTHORS 1-12 


PORTRAITS 


RALPH  WALDO  EMERSON      ....      Frontispiece 

CAPTAIN  JOHN  SMITH 6 

COTTON  MATHER •  42 

JONATHAN  EDWARDS 45 

BENJAMIN  FRANKLIN v  58 

ALEXANDER  HAMILTON 72 

THOMAS  JEFFERSON '    •        -75 

WASHINGTON  IRVING Io6 

HARRIET  BEECHER  STOWE n8 

ABRAHAM  LINCOLN I22 

WILLIAM  CULLEN  BRYANT r38 

HENRY  WADSWORTH  LONGFELLOW       .        .        .        .  142 

JOHN  GREENLEAF  WHITTIER 1S9 

EDGAR  ALLAN  POE J79 

SIDNEY  LANIER l88 

WALT  WHITMAN J99 

OLIVER  WENDELL  HOLMES 227 

JAMES  RUSSELL  LOWELL 235 

FRANCIS  PARKMAN 246 

DANIEL  WEBSTER 253 

HENRY  DAVID  THOREAU .260 

JAMES  FENIMORE  COOPER 266 

NATHANIEL  HAWTHORNE 299 

HENRY  JAMES 321 


AMERICAN    LITERATURE 

CHAPTER  I 

THE  COLONIAL    PERIOD 

From  age  to  age  man's  still  aspiring  spirit 
Finds  wider  scope  and  sees  with  clearer  eyes, 

And  thou  in  larger  measure  dost  inherit 

What  made  thy  great  forerunners  free  and  wise. 

—  JAMES  RUSSELL  LOWELL,  Ode. 

I.  General  Divisions  of  American  Literature.  —  Almost 
three  centuries  have  passed  since  Englishmen  began  to 
plant  settlements  on  the  eastern  coast  of  North  America. 
Within  the  first  century  and  a  half,  in  round  numbers,  is 
embraced  the  Colonial  Period  of  our  life  and  letters. 
The  Revolutionary  agitation,  conflict,  victory,  ^and  result 
ing  problems  shaped,  in  the  main,  the  literature  of  the 
following  fifty  years.  The  present  century,  nearly  iden 
tical  with  the  National  Era,  is  really  the  first  in  which 
American  books  have  won  recognition.  Yet  the  earlier 
centuries  should  not  be  ignored.  The  COLONIAL  PERIOD 
is  most  easily  handled  in  halves.  The  first  seventy-five 
years  may  appropriately  be  termed  the  HEROIC  AGE  ;  the 
second  seventy-five  years  the  PROVINCIAL  AGE.  About 


2  AMERICAN  LITERATURE  CHAP. 

the  first  two  or  three  generations  of  settlers  clung  the 
large  atmosphere  of  the  Old  World.  Graduates  of 
Oxford  and  Cambridge,  gallants  of  royalist  houses,  gen 
tlemen  and  scholars,  accustomed  to  the  best  in  art,  in 
thought,  in  society,  lived  in  the  log  cabins  of  James 
town  and  Plymouth  Plantation.  Between  the  forest 
and  the  ocean,  they  reared  their  children  and  their 
children's  children  in  a  certain  breadth  of  culture. 
These  Pilgrim  Fathers  and  Gentlemen  Adventurers 
were,  like  ./Eneas,  a  great  part  of  the  wonderful  tale 
they  told.  Of  all  the  splendid  deeds  on  land  and 
sea  done  by  the  countrymen  and  contemporaries  of 
Shakespeare,  not  one  outshines  the  painful,  perilous 
colonization  of  America.  Shipwreck,  fever,  famine,  the 
wilderness,  and  the  savage  fought  against  the  enter 
prise,  but  the  resolute  English  temper,  whether  mani 
fested  in  the  bright  courage  of  the  cavalier  or  the 
stern  persistence  of  the  Puritan,  faced  disaster  down. 

The  transition  to  a  narrow  outlook  on  life  and  a 
preoccupation  with  petty  concerns  was  more  marked 
in  the  North  than  in  the  South ;  for  the  wealthy  planters 
of  Virginia  and  her  neighboring  colonies  continued,  until 
the  Revolution,  to  maintain  the  ancestral  connection  with 
Europe,  often  sending  their  sons  across  the  Atlantic  for 
education  and  travel.  The  southern  settlers  had  brought 
with  them  to  the  New  World  the  feudal  tradition.  So 
ciety  had  taken  form  in  strata,  with  the  great  landowners 
at  the  top,  the  well-to-do  farmers  beneath,  then  poor 
whites  and  overseers,  and  under  all  a  black  mass  of 


I  THE  COLONIAL   PERIOD  3 

slaves.  Notwithstanding  the  evil  features  of  the  system, 
there  was,  as  always  in  such  societies,  the  advantage  of 
high  development  for  individuals  of  the  privileged  class. 
At  the  cost  of  the  toiling  and  suffering  many,  a  favored 
few  were  set  free  to  attain  rare  personal  graces  and 
powers.  When  the  hour  of  the  Revolution  struck,  and 
the  destinies  of  a  people  hung  in  the  balance,  it  was  the 
South  that  gave  to  the  crisis  the  commander-in-chief, 
the  most  eloquent  orator,  the  framer  of  the  Declaration 
of  Independence,  the  "  Father  of  the  Constitution,"  and 
the  first  President  of  the  United  States. 

The  northern  colonists,  on  the  other  hand,  repre 
sented  in  general  the  middle  class  of  English  society,  the 
trades-people  rather  than  the  gentlefolk.  Their  memories 
were  not  of  Tudor  mansions  embowered  in  park  and 
beech  groves,  but  of  market-place,  mill,  smithy,  and  all 
the  busy  life  of  a  Lancashire  or  Yorkshire  town.  They 
were  dissenters  from  the  Church  of  England,  adherents 
of  Cromwell  and  Parliament,  men  determined  on 
democracy.  The  brave  little  colleges  of  Harvard  and 
Yale  sufficed  them,  as  a  rule,  in  place  of  foreign 
universities.  They  kept  the  level.  If  there  were  fewer 
giants  in  Massachusetts  than  in  Virginia,  fewer  men  pre 
eminent  for  manners,  wide  experience  of  the  world,  and 
that  distinction  of  bearing  and  character  which  springs 
from  the  habit  of  lordship,  in  average  intelligence 
and  morality  the  North  far  outranked  the  SoutrT.  Yet 
New  England,  as  the  seventeenth  century  drew  to  a 
close,  showed  in  many  ways  the  ill  effects  of  her  isola- 


4  AMERICAN   LITERATURE  CHAP. 

tion  from  Europe.  The  Provincial  Age  had  set  in.  The 
sense  of  proportion  was  lost.  Primness,  credulity,  and 
pedantry  stamped  the  scattered  communities,  intellectu 
ally  starved  and  straitened  as  they  were.  Without  the 
sting  of  peril,  the  lofty  consciousness  of  a  sincerity  proved 
by  immense  sacrifice,  by  life  risked  daily  for  the  sake  of 
truth,  without  art,  without  adequate  libraries,  without 
that  realizing  knowledge  of  the  myriad  aspects  and 
values  of  humanity  promoted  to-day  by  telegraph,  cable, 
steam,  newspapers,  magazines,  the  mind  became  cramped 
and  the  religious  vision  blurred.  The  whipping  of  the 
Quakers  was  cruel,  but  the  witchcraft  trials  were  puerile 
as  well.  A  smug  and  matter-of-fact  quality,  too,  had 
crept  into  that  stern  piety.  Bradford's  Journal  is 
touched  with  poetry  and  spirituality;  not  so  Sewall's 
Diary.  Yet  the  essential  strain  of  Puritanism,  the  firm 
moral  fibre  and  ideal  aspiration  of  the  Pilgrims,  subsisted 
and  subsists. 

II.  Virginian  Colonization. — The  first  names  directly 
connected  with  the  English  colonization  of  America  are 
those  of  the  noble  Elizabethans,  Sir  Humphrey  Gilbert  and 
Sir  Walter  Raleigh.  The  former,  on  his  return  voyage 
from  Newfoundland,  in  1583,  sank  with  his  ship.  Of 
two  successive  colonies  sent  by  the  latter,  at  large  cost,  to 
Roanoke,  one,  hard-pressed  by  hunger  and  Indian  hos 
tility,  was  taken  off  by  Sir  Francis  Drake,  and  the  other 
mysteriously  disappeared.  So  arduous  and  so  danger 
ous  was  the  task  of  the  pioneers.  But  Gilbert's  words 
had  struck  a  keynote  to  which  brave  hearts  yet  re- 


I  THE  COLONIAL  PERIOD  5 

sponded :  "  He  is  not  worthy  to  live  at  all  that  for  fear 
or  danger  of  death  shunneth  his  country's  service  and 
his  own  honor,  seeing  death  is  inevitable  and  the  fame  of 
virtue  immortal." 

Greed  of  riches,  no  less  than  "  a  great  flame  of  desire 
to  attempt  some  notable  thing,"  moved  men  to  under 
take  the  Virginian  adventure.  The  time  had  indeed 
gone  by  when  eager  mariners,  pranked  out  in  sky-colored 
suits,  sailed  forth  gayly  as  for  a  festival  trip,  repeating  to 
one  another  legends  of  far  Cathay,  —  its  dazzling  roofs 
and  pavements,  mountain  of  turquoises  and  lake  of 
pearls.  Hope  deferred  had  begun  to  tell  upon  the  pop 
ular  mind.  While  the  London  Company  and  the  Ply 
mouth  Company,  licensed  by  James  in  1606,  were  trying 
to  collect  a  new  crew  of  colonists  by  the  old  lure  of 
shining  promises,  the  London  theatres,  whose  free  com 
ment  on  current  events  resembled  that  of  the  modern 
press,  made  fun  of  this  reputed  El  Dorado.  In  a  play 
called  Eastward  Ho  appears  the  character  of  Captain 
Seagull,  who,  amidst  the  clinking  of  the  tavern  pots, 
pours  into  the  ears  of  a  brace  of  bankrupt  young  gentle 
men,  Spendall  and  Scapethrift,  a  glowing  account  of  the 
Virginian  life,  telling  how  the  Indians  are  so  in  love  with 
the  English  that  "  all  the  treasure  they  have,  they  lay  at 
their  feet,"  how  in  that  happy  clime  even  the  dripping- 
pans  are  wrought  of  pure  gold,  "  and  for  rubies  and  dia 
monds,  they  go  forth  on  holidays  and  gather  'em  by  the 
seashore,  to  hang  on  their  children's  coats  and  stick  in 
their  caps." 


6  AMERICAN  LITERATURE  CHAP. 

The  first  permanent  colony,  settled  at  Jamestown  under 
the  London  Company  in  1607,  numbered  scarcely  more 
than  one  hundred  men,  mainly  fortune-seeking  gallants, 
soldiers,  servants,  with  not  a  few  downright  rogues  and 
the  merest  sprinkling  of  mechanics.  This  was  poor  stuff 
for  pioneering.  By  the  end  of  three  months  diseases 
bred  of  hunger  and  hardship  had  cut  the  number  down 
to  sixty.  Shipload  by  shipload,  more  adventurers  came 
over.  Still  immigration  could  hardly  keep  pace  with 
destruction.  By  1616,  the  year  of  Shakespeare's  death, 
some  sixteen  hundred  and  fifty  colonists '  had  been  sent 
to  Virginia,  of  whom  barely  three  hundred  and  fifty  re 
mained.  A  few  had  been  taken  home.  The  most  had 
perished.  But  the  English  grip  was  not  to  be  shaken 
off.  Three  years  more,  and  Virginia  had  her  House  of 
Burgesses.  Before  1620  began  the  importation  of  negroes. 
Frightful  Indian  massacres,  disastrous  though  these  were, 
failed  to  wipe  out  the  palefaces.  The  English  were  in 
America  to  stay. 

III.  Captain  John  Smith.  —  Snatches  of  this  story  of 
manful  strife  against  sea  and  wilderness  make  up  our 
earliest  American  literature,  if  so  it  may  be  called.  For 
those  who  love  tales  of  adventure,  there  is  a  charm  in 
these  plain  old  narratives  written  by  men  newly  delivered 
from  the  hazards  they  describe.  Foremost  among  these 
stout-hearted  sailors  and  Indian  fighters  is  that  far-famed 
soldier  of  fortune,  Captain  John  Smith.  One  of  the 
original  Jamestown  settlers,  it  was  to  his  wary  and  in 
trepid  leadership,  assumed  at  the  darkest  hour,  that  the 


(~Thefe.  are  the  Lined  that  Jlxw  thy  Face^bttt  thofe, 
^That  flve.w  thy    G-fCtce  and  GloT_y  brighter   bee 
f~Ttvy  F<zir&-'2)i/cou&ries  and  Fowle.  -  Overthrown 
Of  Salvages,  mueh-  Civillizd  by     thet. 
Ltjtjkw'  thy  Spirit:  and  to  it    Glory 
So.  tiiou  art  Brafie  without,  but  (jolde 
Cjffo.in£rafse,ftoojoft  smiths  ^4cts  to  & 
J  /i-f  thy  Fatnc.to  nuikt  Brafse  steele  out  weare-. 

f~77ih??   as  llwutLrt  rtrtttCff* 


I  THE  COLONIAL  PERIOD  / 

colony  owed  its  preservation.  Only  twenty-seven  years 
of  age  on  his  arrival  in  Virginia,  he  was  already  well 
seasoned  to  strenuous  action  and  desperate  straits.  He 
asked  nothing  better.  "  Who  would  live  at  home  idly 
(or  think  in  himself  any  worth  to  live)  only  to  eat,  drink 
and  sleep,  and  so  die? " 

He  had  already,  by  his  own  telling,  tried  soldiering  in 
the  Low  Countries,  played  the  hermit  in  a  "  pavilion  of 
boughs"  by  a  "fair  brook"  in  his  native  Lincolnshire, 
wandered  through  Normandy  and  Brittany,  and  em 
barked  for  Italy  only  to  be  thrown  overboard  in  a  storm 
as  an  Englishman  and  a  Protestant,  who,  like  Jonah, 
brought  the  foul  weather.  He  had  borne  a  part  in  field- 
fights,  sea-fights,  sieges,  and  finally,  "both  lamenting 
and  repenting  to  have  seen  so  many  Christians  slaughter 
one  another,"  had  drawn  his  sword  against  the  Turks. 
Three  of  these,  he  says,  he  slew  in  single  combat,  but 
for  all  his  feats  at  arms  he  found  himself,  at  last,  in 
Tartar  captivity,  "slave  of  slaves,"  with  an  iron  ring 
about  his  neck.  Goaded  by  cruelty,  he  beat  out  his  mas 
ter's  brains  with  a  threshing-flail  and  fled  in  the  slain 
bashaw's  clothes  to  the  desert,  whence  he  made  his  es 
cape  into  Russia.  Returning,  by  way  of  Morocco,  to 
England,  he  arrived  in  good  time  to  join  the  Jamestown 
expedition.  On  the  voyage  he  fell  out  with  the  leaders 
and  came  near  hanging  for  it.  Of  this  episode  he  writes 
in  his  cool  fashion  :  "  A  pair  of  gallows  was  made,  but 
Captain  Smith,  for  whom  they  were  intended,  could  not 
be  persuaded  to  use  them." 


8  AMERICAN   LITERATURE  CHAP. 

Smith's  earliest  book,  A  True  Relation  of  Virginia, 
was  printed  in  London  in  1608,  the  year  of  Milton's 
birth.  It  is  a  hurried,  semi-official  document,  giving  a 
sketchy  account  of  the  first  year  of  the  colony.  When 
we  read  of  the  young  captain's  own  busy  doings  in  those 
critical  months,  building  forts  and  palisadoes,  planting, 
exploring,  fighting,  sojourning  among  the  Indians,  now  as 
captive,  now  as  guest,  trading  blue  beads  for  corn  and 
venison,  we  wonder  that  he  found  the  moments  in  which 
to  jot  down  his  news  at  all.  Yet  heedless  of  art,  all 
rough-and-ready  as  the  headlong  narrative  is,  the  vigor 
of  the  man,  and  the  reality  of  the  situation  make  it 
graphic.  We  see  those  long  stretches  of  yellow  sand, 
those  malarial  marshes  teeming  with  wildfowl,  the  frantic 
figure  of  the  skin-clad  and  befeathered  conjurer,  and  the 
barbaric  pomp  and  state  of  the  great  chief  Powhatan. 

The  mention  of  Pocahontas  in  this  book  is  but  slight. 
It  is  not  here,  but  in  a  later  and  fuller  work,  that  Smith 
tells  how  the  little  Indian  princess  rescued  him  from 
death.  Under  the  threshing  of  recent  scholarship,  it  has 
looked  as  if  this  bit  of  native  idyl  might  fly  off  as  legend. 
It  is  easy  to  call  the  fiery  captain  a  liar,  now  that  his 
sword  is  rust ;  but  the  charge  has  yet  to  be  established. 
In  view  of  the  facts  that  he  rendered  signal  service  to 
America  and,  like  Coriolanus,  rewarded  his  deeds  with 
doing  them,  scoffs  at  his  expense  are  peculiarly  ungra 
cious.  Bearing  in  mind  his  own  words  :  "  Seeing  honor 
is  our  life's  ambition ;  and  our  ambition  after  death  to 
have  an  honorable  memory  of  our  life,"  critics,  in  duty 


I  THE  COLONIAL  PERIOD 

bound  to  investigate  to  the  uttermost,  would  nevertheless 
do  well  to  be  very  sure  of  their  grounds  before  besmirch 
ing  that  honor  and  denying  him  that  memory. 

Smith  stayed  in  Virginia  two  years  and  a  half.  Dur 
ing  the  latter  part  of  the  time  he  served  the  colony  as 
governor.  In  this  capacity  he  penned  a  trenchant  letter 
to  the  London  stockholders,  accompanied  by  a  "  Map  of 
the  Bay  and  the  Rivers,  with  an  annexed  Relation  of  the 
countries  and  nations  that  inhabit  them."  In  1614,  after 
a  period  of  rest  in  his  native  land,  he  made  a  voyage  of 
exploration  to  New  England,  starting  out  again,  this  time 
with  a  colony,  a  year  later.  Storms  and  pirates  brought 
the  enterprise  to  naught,  and  for  the  rest  of  his  life  Smith 
lived  quietly  at  home,  writing  of  what  he  had  seen  in  his 
varied  career,  and  still  urging  American  colonization  in 
face  of  the  growing  apathy  and  distaste.  For  the  Eng 
lish  mind  was  now  so  hardened  against  dreams  of  a  Para 
dise  over  the  sea  that  the  veteran  enthusiast,  unable  to 
impress  his  listeners  with  his  hopes  and  plans  for  the 
New  World,  said  he  might  as  well  have  tried  to  "cut 
rocks  with  oyster  shells." 

IV.  William  Strachey.  —  Smith  and  others,  among 
them  a  young  nobleman  of  the  storied  house  of  Percy, 
have  left  vivid  pictures  of  the  suffering  behind  the  palisa- 
does  and  the  hazards  of  the  wilderness.  The  dangers 
and  disasters  of  those  early  voyages,  too,  have  not  lacked 
chroniclers.  One  Colonel  Norwood  recounts,  in  a  fash 
ion  so  naive  as  often  to  provoke  a  smile,  his  luckless  trip 
in  "The  Virginia  Merchant."  Aristocrat  that  he  was, 


IO  AMERICAN   LITERATURE  CHAP. 

the  ordinary  deprivations  of  sea-life  came  hard  to  him, 
but  when  the  crew  on  the  crippled  vessel  were  reduced 
to  catching  the  ship  rats,  which  sold  among  the  famish 
ing  passengers  for  four  or  five  dollars  apiece,  the  story 
grows  tragic  enough.  The  poor  colonel's  worst  tor 
ment  was  thirst,  so  that  when  at  last  he  found  himself  on 
land  again,  lying  flat,  with  his  open  mouth  set  against  a 
running  stream,  "this,"  he  says,  "I  thought  the  greatest 
pleasure  I  ever  enjoyed  on  earth."  But  the  wrath  of  the 
Atlantic  found  a  momentary  Homer  in  William  Strachey. 
Certain  impassioned  paragraphs  of  his  Wrack  and  Re 
demption  of  Sir  Thomas  Gates  have  in  them  the  tumult 
and  the  grandeur  of  a  stormy  sea.  The  very  sentences 
seem  to  surge.  There  is  nothing  in  the  first  two  centu 
ries  of  American  literature  to  rank  beside  portions  of  this 
narrative  for  essential  poetic  quality.  Written  in  1610, 
it  may  well  have  given  Shakespeare  hints  for  The  Tempest. 
Here  the  supreme  poet  may  have  found,  in  Strachey's 
"  dreadful  storm  and  hideous  "  that  "  did  beat  all  light 
from  heaven,"  in  that  reality  of  "terrible  cries,"  and 
"prayers  ...  in  the  heart  and  lips,"  his  own  "wild 
waters  "  and  "  noontide  sun  .  .  .  bedimmed,"  the  "  cry  " 
that  "did  knock  against"  Miranda's  " very  heart,"  and 
the  despairing  call  of  the  wet  mariners  : 

"  All  lost !  to  prayers,  to  prayers !  all  lost !  " 

Shakespeare  may  have  caught  suggestions,  verbal  and 
dramatic,  from  Strachey's  "outcries  of  officers,"  "glut  of 
water,"  "  clamors  drowned  in  the  winds."  The  thunder 


I  THE  COLONIAL   PERIOD  II 

which  dismayed  the  company  of  "  The  Sea  Venture  " 
echoes  in  The  Tempest  as  a  "  deep  and  dreadful  organ 
pipe."  "  There  was  not  a  moment,"  says  Strachey,  "  in 
which  the  sudden  splitting  or  instant  oversetting  of  the 
ship  was  not  expected,"  and  Shakespeare's  despairing 
passengers  are  heard  in  "  confused  noise  "  : 

" '  We  split,  we  split ! '  — '  Farewell,  my  wife  and  children ! '  — 
'  Farewell,  brother  ! '  — '  We  split,  we  split,  we  split ! ' " 

Strachey  tells  how  the  "  fright  and  amazement  "  of  the 
"superstitious  seamen"  was  intensified  by  "  an  appari 
tion  of  a  little  round  light,  like  a  faint  star,  trembling 
and  streaming  along  with  a  sparkling  blaze,  half  the 
height  upon  the  main  mast,  and  shooting  sometimes 
from  shroud  to  shroud."  In  close  resemblance,  Pros- 
pero's  "  tricksy  spirit  "  makes  report : 

"  I  boarded  the  king's  ship;   now  on  the  beak, 
Now  in  the  waist,  the  deck,  in  every  cabin, 
I  flam'd  amazement :  sometimes  I'd  divide, 
And  burn  in  many  places;   on  the  topmast, 
The  yards,  and  bowsprit,  would  I  flame  distinctly, 
Then  meet  and  join." 

In  the  issue,  the  distressed  adventurers  might  have 
said,  with  Ferdinand, 

"Though  the  seas  threaten,  they  are  merciful." 

Running  their  battered  ship  aground,  they  escaped  in 
boats  to  the  Bermudas,  Shakespeare's  "  still-vexed  Ber- 
moothes."  These  islands,  Strachey  relates,  were  in  ill 
repute,  as  encompassed  by  "tempests,  thunders,  and 
other  fearful  objects "  and  given  over  "  to  devils  and 


12  AMERICAN   LITERATURE  CHAP. 

wicked  spirits."  So  Ferdinand,  at  sight  of  the  enchanted 
fire,  cried : 

"  Hell  is  empty, 
And  all  the  devils  are  here;  " 

but  Ariel  proved  to  be  such  "a  harmless  fairy"  that  it 
has  devolved  on  Caliban  to  keep  up  the  bad  name  of 
the  ocean  isles. 

Little  is  known  of  Strachey,  who  was  made,  on  his 
arrival  in  Virginia,  secretary  of  the  colony  and  in  that 
capacity  wrote  a  History  of  Travel  into  Virginia,  a 
businesslike  document  crammed  with  information  about 
the  country,  its  commodities  and  native  inhabitants, 
especially  the  mighty  Powhatan.  Little  Pocahontas 
shocked  the  London  barrister  by  her  childish  romping 
with  the  Jamestown  boys.  One  of  the  most  interesting 
features  of  this  book  is  its  account  of  the  "  godly  hare," 
to  whose  bright  house  in  the  sun-rising ,  Indian  braves 
troop  joyously  after  death.  Thus  early  do  we  come  upon 
a  fragment  of  that  strange  rabbit-lore  which  flavors  fire 
side  talk  to-day  in  the  western  tepee  of  the  red  man  no 
less  than  in  the  cabin  of  the  southern  black. 

V.  Development  of  Southern  Life.  —  Strachey  has 
drawn  a  memorable  picture  of  the  three-years-old  James 
town  as  he  saw  it  on  arrival,  —  a  low  half-acre  of  ground, 
protected  by  a  fence  of  planks  and  posts,  and  further 
more,  on  the  hypothenuse  side,  by  the  river.  At  each 
corner  stood  a  watch-tower  furnished  with  one  or  two 
small  cannon.  Within  the  palisades  lay  a  lesser  triangle 
made  of  three  rows  of  cabins.  In  the  middle  area  were 


I  THE  COLONIAL  PERIOD  13 

grouped  a  market-place,  house  of  storage,  guard-house, 
and  a  "pretty  chapel,"  with  cedar  chancel,  pews  and 
pulpit,  a  font  and  two  bells.  The  little  sanctuary  was 
"  kept  passing  sweet  and  trimmed  up  with  divers  flowers." 
Twice  on  Sunday  and  once  on  Thursday  there  was  a  ser 
mon  delivered  there,  the  Governor  attending  in  solemn 
state  with  his  guard  of  fifty  clad  in  "  fair  red  cloaks." 
Every  morning  at  ten  and  every  afternoon  at  four  those 
sweet-toned  English  bells  rang  to  prayer.  The  cabins 
were  roofed  with  bark,  Indian  fashion,  and  their  floors 
were  to  some  extent  carpeted  with  Indian  mats.  Great 
fireplaces  blazed  with  the  abundant  fuel.  In  this  nar 
row  compass  the  germ  colony  had  stood  out  those 
first  three  desperate  years.  The  huddled  settlers  had 
built  for  security,  not  comfort.  So  long  as  their  window- 
holes  were  hung  with  heavy  shutters,  it  did  not  matter 
that  their  shelves  were  but  sparingly  furnished  with 
wooden  bowls  and  trenchers.  But  already  the  southern 
stamp  was  on  this  fortified  hamlet,  —  the  stamp  of  the 
English  Church,  with  its  beautiful  rites  and  ceremonies 
inherited  from  the  Mother  Church  of  Christendom,  and, 
though  less  distinctly,  the  stamp  of  old  English  hospital 
ity.  Those  primitive  chimneys  might  be  rudely  fashioned 
of  twigs  daubed  with  clay,  but  in  the  intervals  of  "the 
starving  time  "  they  puffed  out  the  smoke  of  good  fellow 
ship.  The  corn  might  be  pounded  in  a  hollow  tree- 
trunk  with  a  rough-hewn  log,  but  the  corn-cake  was 
divided.  The  state  that  attended  the  church-going  of 
the  Governor,  whose  green  velvet  chair  and  prayer- 


14  AMERICAN   LITERATURE  CHAP. 

cushion  were  conspicuous  in  the  chancel,  denoted  that 
aristocratic  bias  which  the  South  has  not  yet  lost.  These 
early  settlements,  nevertheless,  had  much  sorry  material 
to  assimilate.  Strachey  speaks  of  the  "many  unruly 
gallants,  packed  hither  by  their  friends  to  escape  ill 
destinies,"  but  these  scape-graces  had  a  noble  strain  of 
blood  which  sometimes  stirred  them  to  build  up  a  new 
manhood  in  a  new  country.  Others  proved  lawless, 
some  tasting  the  sharp  edge  of  military  justice,  like  that 
ringleader  of  the  third  mutiny  in  the  company  of  the 
wrecked  "  Sea  Venture,"  who,  condemned  to  the  gallows 
on  the  Bermudas,  "  earnestly  desired,  being  a  gentle 
man,  that  he  might  be  shot  to  death,  and  towards  the 
evening  he  had  his  desire,  the  sun  and  his  life  setting 
together." 

Worse  yet,  England  came  to  regard  Virginia  as  a  con 
venient  dumping-ground  for  her  vagabonds,  paupers, 
even  felons.  The  system  of  redemptioners  came  into 
play.  Poor  folk,  for  whom  there  was  no  honest  bread 
in  England,  went  out  to  work  in  the  plantations,  binding 
themselves  for  fixed  terms  of  service.  Convicts  were 
shipped  to  the  colonies  and  sold  into  lifelong  slavery 
there.  Girls,  coaxed  or  kidnapped,  were  landed  in  flocks 
and  put  up  at  auction  as  wives  to  the  settlers,  the  price 
being  paid  in  pounds  of  tobacco.  With  the  lavish  grants 
of  land  and  the  liberality  of  soil  and  climate,  affluence 
came  to  many  who  had  previously  known  squalor,  but 
fine  feathers  did  not  make  fine  birds.  Not  Master  John 
Pory  alone,  watching  "our  cow-keeper  here  of  James 


I  THE  COLONIAL  PERIOD  15 

City "  go  on  Sundays  "  accoutred  all  in  fresh  flaming 
silk,"  turned  in  vexation  of  spirit  to  the  solitudes  of  those 
"crystal  waters  and  odoriferous  woods." 

On  the  whole,  the  cavalier  element,  recruited  by 
royalists  who,  upon  the  execution  of  Charles  the  First, 
fled  England  in  horror  and  wrath,  held  its  own,  assisted 
by  the  natural  features  of  the  country.  The  level  reaches 
of  productive  earth  and  the  numerous  river-ways  ren 
dered  it  possible  for  these  Virginian  gentlemen,  as  the 
savages  receded  and  the  times  became  more  settled,  to 
withdraw  from  their  displeasing  neighbors  and  dwell 
in  baronial  fashion  on  great  tobacco  plantations,  sur 
rounded  by  indentured  servants  and  the  gentle  negro 
slaves.  These  lords  of  the  manor  remained  true  to  their 
tradition  of  hospitality,  even  exceeding,  in  the  free- 
heartedness  of  pioneer  life,  the  measure  of  generous 
entertainment  known  to  their  ancestral  squires  and  to 
the  English  country-house  to-day.  Those  one-storied, 
wide-chimneyed,  ample  Virginian  mansions  were  the 
centres  of  a  delightful  social  culture.  The  amenities 
and  courtesies,  undervalued  by  the  New  England  Puri 
tans,  found  their  best  American  fostering  here.  Because 
of  the  remoteness  of  the  plantations,  the  sacraments,  as 
baptism  and  marriage,  which  in  England  had  been  cele 
brated  in  the  church,  were  transferred  to  the  home. 
The  southern  home  became  a  sacred  place.  But  the 
church  suffered.  Whitaker,  "  the  Apostle  of  Virginia," 
had  no  successor.  He  would  have  been  the  Eliot  of  the 
Chesapeake  Indians,  but  his  day  of  labor  was  cut  short. 


1 6  AMERICAN   LITERATURE  CHAP. 

It  was  largely  a  fox-hunting  and  horse-racing  clergy  that 
the  establishment  sent  over  to  drink  too  long  at  the 
colonial  tables.  In  a  society  such  as  this,  education 
fared  ill.  Sir  William  Berkeley,  for  thirty-six  years  the 
royal  governor,  opposed  free  schools  and  printing  as 
furthering  independent  thought,  heresy,  and  political  un 
rest, —  a  sound  despotic  position.  But,  indeed,  the 
manner  of  settlement  on  broad  estates  instead  of  in  com 
munities  made  the  public  schools  of  New  England  im 
practicable  for  the  southern  colonies.  And  the  Indians, 
for  their  part,  by  a  fierce  massacre  deferred  for  seventy 
years  the  College  of  William  and  Mary  originally  de 
signed,  like  Dartmouth,  for  their  own  instruction. 

VI.  The  Dearth  of  Later  Colonial  Literature  in  the 
South  was  an  almost  inevitable  result  of  the  living  con 
ditions.  As  for  books,  these  terrestrial  magnates  im 
ported  them  from  England  in  their  own  trading-vessels, 
tied  up,  after  the  voyage,  to  their  own  river-wharves,  just 
as  they  imported,  once  a  year,  the  fashions  and  the  news. 
COLONEL  BYRD,  a  distinguished  man  of  affairs  and  an 
accomplished  gentleman,  left  some  admirable  notes  of 
colonial  travel,  lively,  chatty,  witty,  alert  of  thought  and 
urbane  of  temper,  but  a  century  passed  before  they  were 
put  into  print.  There  were  historians,  of  a  sort,  but  the 
most  entertaining  of  these,  ROBERT  BEVERLY,  educated,  like 
Byrd,  in  Europe,  candidly  adds,  after  requesting  from  his 
reader  the  grace  of  credence,  "  the  next  favor  I  would 
ask  of  him  should  be  not  to  criticise  too  unmercifully 
upon  my  style.  I  am  an  Indian  and  don't  pretend  to 


I  THE  COLONIAL  PERIOD  I/ 

be  exact  in  my  language."  So  John  Hammond,  who 
championed  the  cause  of  immigration  in  a  pamphlet 
designating  Virginia  and  Maryland  under  the  title  of 
Leah  and  Rachel,  finds  his  sentences  "  harsh  and  dis 
ordered,"  and  gay  George  Alsop,  who  had  a  laughing 
word  to  speak  for  the  younger  province,  recognizes  his 
budget  of  drolleries  as  "wild  and  confused."  In  1693, 
William  and  Mary  was  opened,  "  a  college  without  a 
chapel,  without  a  scholarship  and  without  a  statute." 
Even  so,  it  furnished  from  its  faculty  a  few  writers  of 
text-books,  theology,  and  Virginian  history,  who,  at  least, 
held  themselves  accountable  to  the  rules  of  syntax. 
Most  memorable  of  these  is  that  staunch,  unwearying 
Scotchman,  JAMES  BLAIR,  a  very  missionary  of  education 
as  of  righteousness,  he  who  "  could  not  rest  until  school 
teachers  were  in  the  land." 

VII.  The  Earlier  Colonial  Period  in  New  England 
witnessed  a  struggle  against  even  greater  physical  odds 
than  those  encountered  by  the  southern  settlers.  It 
was  spring  when  the  Jamestown  colonists,  all  men, 
landed  on  the  Virginian  shore.  The  "  Mayflower " 
brought  families,  nearly  half  that  initial  hundred  being 
women  and  children.  "And  for  the  season,"  wrote 
Governor  Bradford,  "it  was  winter,  and  they  that 
know  the  winters  of  that  country  know  them  to  be 
sharp  and  violent,  and  subject  to  cruel  and  fierce 
storms,  dangerous  to  travel  to  known  places,  much  more 
to  search  an  unknown  coast.  Besides,  what  could  they 
see  but  a  hideous  and  desolate  wilderness,  full  of  wild 


1 8  AMERICAN   LITERATURE  CHAP. 

beasts  and  wild  men?     And  what  multitudes  there  might 
be  of  them  they  knew  not." 

A  pitiful  winter  it  was,  for  when  at  last  "  warm  and  fair 
weather  appeared,  and  the  birds  sang  in  the  trees  most 
pleasantly,"  half  that  little  company  lay  buried  beneath 
the  Plymouth  pines.  But  the  founders  of  New  England, 
men  of  ideas  and  principles,  sober-headed,  earnest- 
hearted,  seeking  homes  rather  than  fortunes,  on  God's 
errand,  not  their  own,  were  proof  against  defeat.  At 
their  first  landing  on  that  wild  coast,  "they  fell  upon 
their  knees  and  blessed  the  God  of  heaven,"  and  in  faith 
and  patience  did  they  persevere.  This  advance  guard 
of  Pilgrims  from  Leyden  came  in  1620.  At  the  end  of 
seven  years  their  number  had  not  doubled,  but  it  was  then 
that  certain  Lincolnshire  dissenters  "  fell  into  discourse 
about  New  England  and  the  planting  of  the  Gospel  there." 
The  following  year  the  great  Puritan  exodus  began. 

"  Well  worthy  to  be  magnified  are  they 
Who,  with  sad  hearts,  of  friends  and  country  took 
A  last  farewell,  their  loved  abodes  forsook, 
And  hallowed  ground  in  which  their  Fathers  lay; 
Then  to  the  new-found  World  explored  their  way, 
That  so  a  Church,  unforced,  uncalled  to  brook 
Ritual  restraints,  within  some  sheltering  nook 
Her  Lord  might  worship  and  His  word  obey 
In  Freedom." 

By  1640,  when  that  tide  of  immigration  was  stayed 
by  the  brightening  outlook  at  home  for  the  Parliamen 
tarian  party,  upwards  of  twenty  thousand  Englishmen, 
mainly  of  the  sturdy  middle-class  stock  and  God-fearing 


I  THE  COLONIAL  PERIOD  19 

Puritan  temper,  were  settled  in  New  England,  their 
fifty  villages  dotting  the  wilderness  like  candles  in  the 
dark. 

Rude  enough  at  first  sight  were  those  primitive  towns, 
—  clusters  of  log-cabins  and  frame  buildings  of  the  plain 
est  sort  gathered  about  the  square,  belfry-topped  meet 
ing-house.  But  the  interior  of  these  simple  abodes  testi 
fied  to  decent,  provident  goodmen  and  dames,  who 
had  shipped,  from  their  well-to-do  homes  across  the  sea, 
store  of  linens  and  woollens,  oaken  chests  cunningly 
"  wrought "  and  panelled,  brass  candlesticks,  claw-footed 
tables,  spinning-wheels,  and  even,  now  and  then,  the  new 
luxury  of  a  chair,  massy,  polished,  richly  carven,  with 
queer,  triangular  seat,  —  solid,  self-respecting  furniture 
that  outwears  the  centuries.  The  Puritan  mothers, 
gowned  in  stiff,  long-waisted  bodice  with  crossed  kerchief 
at  throat,  and  with  decorous  skirt,  kept  the  floors  freshly 
sanded  and  the  shelf-rows  of  pewter  bright,  while  the 
sweet  Priscillas,  though  themselves  in  "  sad-colored " 
attire,  would  sometimes  venture  on  gay  hangings  of 
chintz  or  calico  to  hide  the  rough  walls,  which  dis 
played,  in  lieu  of  pictures,  such  ornaments  as  muskets, 
pikes,  antlers,  and  the  burnished  warming-pan.  The 
fare  these  careful  housewives  set  before  the  sturdy  men 
in  leather  jerkins,  smallclothes,  and  steeple-crowned  hats 
was  commonly  of  the  simplest,  mush  and  johnny-cake, 
with  perhaps  a  trencher  of  wild  turkey  and  a  jug  of  home 
brewed  beer,  but  the  blessings  were  long  in  proportion. 
In  the  time  when 


2O  AMERICAN   LITERATURE  CHAP. 

"  the  dainty  Indian  maize 
Was  eat  with  clam  shells  out  of  wooden  trays; 


'Twas  in  those  days  an  honest  grace  would  hold 
Till  an  hot  pudding  grew  at  heart  a-cold." 

Seen  from  the  safe  and  comfortable  distance  of  two 
hundred  years  and  more,  this  life  was  in  rare  degree 
poetical  and  picturesque.  Training  day,  Election  day, 
Thanksgiving  day,  gave  it  animation,  no  less  than  the 
Indian  raid  or  the  almost  equally  exciting  scrimmage 
of  town-meeting,  that  cradle  of  American  liberties. 
Adventures  with  bear  or  panther,  terrible  or  pathetic 
glimpses  of  the  forest  tribes,  already  sullenly  reced 
ing  on  their  long  westward  march,  pious  scandals 
clustering  about  some  bluff  Captain  Underhill,  in  steel 
cap  and  leathern  breastplate,  or  some  ill-starred  Anne 
Hutchinson,  so  eloquent  as  to  win  over  the  young  gov 
ernor  to  her  heresy,  gave  abundant  themes  for  story. 
One  might  even  meet,  by  moonlight,  on  Boston  Com 
mon,  the  calm,  rebuking  ghost,  in  silver-gray  raiment, 
of  the  Quaker  matron,  Mary  Dyer,  hanged  there  as  a 
troubler  of  Israel.  But  no  scribe,  not  a  single  tutor  or 
homespun-coated  student  of  that  "  school  of  prophets," 
Harvard  College,  has  left  record  of  such  encounter.  It 
was  the  day  of  axe  and  musket,  not  of  quill.  Yet 
books  were  written  in  New  England,  and,  after  1639, 
printed  there  as  well.  Their  authors  are  chiefly  to 
be  found  in  the  ranks  of  the  magistracy  and  the 
clergy. 


I  THE  COLONIAL  PERIOD  21 

VIII.  The  Early  Governors  became,  in  several  cases, 
the  historians  of  the  infant  colonies.  Upon  them  lay 
the  supreme  responsibility,  and  by  them  were  written 
the  authoritative  accounts,  not  only  for  the  information 
of  friends  beyond  the  Atlantic,  but  in  obedience  to 
some  deep,  prophetic  sense  of  the  significance  that 
attended  these  humble  and  hard  beginnings,  of  a  nation. 
The  most  venerable  figure  here  is  WILLIAM  BRADFORD, 
second  governor  of  Plymouth  Colony.  Chosen  to 
that  office  on  the  death  of  Governor  Carver,  when  the 
"  Mayflower "  had  but  just  sailed  away,  he  was  annually 
reflected  for  the  rest  of  his  life,  except  for  those 
"five  times  he  by  importunity  gat  off."  His  History 
of  Plymouth  Plantation,  extending  to  1646,  the  year 
when  this  Moses  of  the  wilderness  rested  from  his 
labors,  "lamented,"  wrote  Cotton  Mather,  "by  all  the 
colonies  of  New  England,  as  a  common  blessing  and 
father  to  them  all,"  was  not  published  in  full  until 
more  than  two  centuries  had  gone  by.  The  manu 
script  was  freely  drawn  upon  by  later  chroniclers, 
by  NATHANIEL  MORTON,  secretary  of  Plymouth  Colony, 
who  used  also  the  animated  journals  of  GOVERNOR  WINS- 
LOW,  by  the  scrupulous  and  laborious  THOMAS  PRINCE, 
by  WILLIAM  HUBBARD,  one  of  the  nine  who  formed  the 
first  graduating  class  of  Harvard  College,  and  by 
THOMAS  HUTCHINSON,  the  Tory  governor  whom  Massa 
chusetts  hated ;  but  the  precious  pages  mysteriously  dis 
appeared  at  about  the  time  of  the  Revolution,  to  turn  up, 
in  1855,  ni  tne  Bishop  of  London's  library.  By  the 


22  AMERICAN   LITERATURE  CHAP. 

courtesy  of  England,  the  document  was  restored  to 
America  in  1897. 

Bradford's  work  is  more  than  a  chronicle.  He  pref 
aces  his  year-by-year  story  of  Plymouth  Plantation 
with  an  account  of  the  rise  of  English  dissent  and  the 
persecutions  by  which  the  Pilgrims  were  harried  out 
of  the  land,  of  their  sojourn  in  Holland,  and  their 
momentous  resolve  to  seek  a  new  home  for  their  faith 
across  the  "  vast  and  furious  ocean."  Sweet  and  noble 
always,  the  recital  is  sometimes  shot  with  gleams  of 
an  ideal  grace,  as  in  these  two  sentences  describing 
the  farewell.  "And  the  time  being  come  that  they 
must  depart,  they  were  accompanied  with  most  of 
their  brethren  out  of  the  city,  unto  a  town  sundry 
miles  off  called  Delft-Haven,  where  the  ship  lay  ready 
to  receive  them.  So  they  left  that  goodly  and  pleas 
ant  city,  which  had  been  their  resting-place  near  twelve 
years,  but  they  knew  they  were  pilgrims,  and  looked 
not  much  on  those  things,  but  lift  up  their  eyes  to  the 
heavens,  their  dearest  country,  and  quieted  their  spirits." 

The  work  which  inevitably  comes  into  comparison 
with  this,  the  History  of  New  England,  written  by  the 
stately  JOHN  WINTHROP,  first  governor  of  the  Colony  of 
Massachusetts  Bay  and  often  after  reflected,  had  also 
to  wait  until  the  present  century  for  publication  in  its 
entirety.  This  record,  historically  the  more  important 
as  dealing  with  the  colony  of  greater  destinies,  has  less 
literary  value  than  the  other.  Begun  by  Winthrop 
on  shipboard  and  continued  on  land  amid  harassing 


I  THE  COLONIAL  PERIOD  23 

cares  and  urgent  duties,  it  was  jotted  down  in  diary 
form,  now  somewhat  fully,  now  with  the  gaps  or  mere 
headings  of  an  over-busy  man.  It  possesses  dignity, 
fidelity  to  fact,  and  a  certain  downright,  practical  force, 
but  it  fails  to  distinguish  between  great  things  and 
small,  is  blotted  by  touches  of  the  sombre  Puritan 
superstition,  and  remains,  as  a  whole,  without  attrac 
tion.  The  most  memorable  passage  is  Winthrop's  dis 
course  upon  liberty,  —  a  mighty  watchword  with  men 
of  the  Puritan  stamp  from  Milton  down.  "There  is  a 
twofold  liberty,  natural,  .  .  .  and  civil  or  federal.  The 
first  is  common  to  man  with  beasts  and  other  creatures. 
By  this,  man,  as  he  stands  in  relation  to  man  simply, 
hath  liberty  to  do  what  he  lists ;  it  is  a  liberty  to  evil 
as  well  as  to  good.  This  liberty  is  incompatible  and 
inconsistent  with  authority.  .  .  .  The  other  kind  of 
liberty  I  call  civil  or  federal ;  it  may  also  be  termed 
moral,  in  reference  to  the  covenant  between  God  and 
man,  in  the  moral  law,  and  the  politic  covenants  and 
constitutions  amongst  men  themselves.  This  liberty 
is  the  proper  end  and  object  of  authority,  and  cannot 
subsist  without  it ;  and  it  is  a  liberty  to  that  only  which 
is  good,  just,  and  honest.  This  liberty  you  are  to  stand 
for,  with  the  hazard  not  only  of  your  goods  but  of  your 
lives,  if  need  be.  ...  This  liberty  is  maintained  and 
exercised  in  a  way  of  subjection  to  authority."  Here 
we  have  political  wisdom  fused  by  patriotic  and  per 
sonal  passion — for  Governor  Winthrop  spoke  these 
words  before  the  General  Court  in  answer  to  a  charge 


24  AMERICAN   LITERATURE  CHAP. 

of  having  exceeded  his  prerogative  —  into  a  grave  and 
lofty  eloquence. 

IX.  The  Early  Ministers.  —  The  Pilgrims  were  Sepa 
ratists,  who,  believing  that  to  every  congregation  and  every 
believer  the  divine  will  is  revealed,  were  opposed  to  the 
idea  of  a  national  church  and  to  the  rule  of  bishops.  The 
Puritans  had  not  separated  themselves  from  the  Church 
of  England,  but  had  vainly  tried  to  secure  a  simpler 
ritual  and  the  reform  of  ecclesiastical  abuses.  In  the 
New  World,  these  two  sects  soon  merged  their  differences 
in  a  common  Congregationalism,  whose  ministers  wielded 
a  power  not  second  even  to  that  of  the  magistrates. 

He  was  little  short  of  an  autocrat,  that  New  England 
parson  of  the  Heroic  Age,  in  his  black  Geneva  cloak  and 
close-fitting  black  velvet  cap.  The  tongue  that  decried 
him  was  in  danger  of  a  cleft  stick.  Criticisms  on  his 
sermons  were  answered  with  public  stripes.  Truancy 
from  his  preaching  led  to  the  stocks  or  the  wooden  cage. 
The  franchise  was  limited  to  church  members,  and 
although  divines  were  not  eligible  to  the  magistracy, 
their  political  influence  was  paramount.  The  Rev.  Mr. 
Ward  of  Ipswich  drew  up  the  Body  of  Liberties.  When 
perplexing  questions  arose,  the  ministers  were  called  in 
to  advise  with  the  General  Court.  Their  words,  indeed, 
were  well  worthy  of  respect.  It  was  the  Rev.  Mr.  Hooker 
of  Hartford  who  said :  "  The  foundation  of  authority  is 
laid  in  the  free  consent  of  the  people."  Under  this 
clerical  control,  the  cause  of  civil  freedom  was  advanced  ; 
not  so  the  cause  of  religious  toleration.  The  Pilgrims 


I  THE  COLONIAL  PERIOD  25 

were  disposed  toward  liberality,  but  very  early  in  the 
history  of  the  Puritan  colony,  a  synod  of  the  clergy  had 
discovered  among  those  log-splitting,  corn-planting  set 
tlers  no  fewer  than  eighty-two  erroneous  opinions  on 
matters  theological.  Maryland,  not  Massachusetts,  hon 
ored  the  individual  conscience. 

The  meeting-house  was  the  strong  tower  of  Colonial 
truth.  Built  on  a  hill-top,  it  had  served,  at  the  outset, 
for  fort  as  well  as  church.  Ammunition  was  stored  in  its 
loft.  On  its  flat  roof  cannon  were  posted  and  sentinels 
kept  watch.  The  drum-beat  assembled  an  armed  con 
gregation. 

"  For  once,  for  fear  of  Indian  beating, 
Our  grandsires  bore  their  guns  to  meeting, 
Each  man  equipped  on  Sunday  morn 
With  psalm-book,  shot,  and  powder-horn, 
And  looked  in  form,  as  all  must  grant, 
Like  the  ancient  true  church  militant." 

The  Pequot  outbreak  and  King  Philip's  War  proved 
the  need  of  these  precautions,  but  even  where,  with  lapse 
of  time,  such  carnal  defences  became  less  requisite,  the 
meeting-house  remained  the  garrison  of  the  godly  in  the 
spiritual  conflict  waged  by  the  brave  old  parsons  against 
the  powers  of  hell,  including  all  heresies  and,  as  pillory, 
whipping-post,  and  branding-iron  bore  witness,  too  many 
heretics. 

There  were  gracious  and  saintly  men  in  that  stern  min 
istry.  FRANCIS  HIGGINSON  of  Salem,  "the  first,"  wrote 
Cotton  Mather,  "in  a  catalogue  of  heroes,"  was  a  courte- 


26  AMERICAN  LITERATURE  CHAP. 

ous  gentleman  no  less  than  a  leader  of  rare  promise. 
JOHN  ELIOT  of  Natick,  Apostle  to  the  Indians,  has  left  a 
fragrant  memory.  "  The  holy,  heavenly,  sweet-affecting  and 
soul-ravishing "  THOMAS  SHEPARD  of  Cambridge,  whose 
autobiography  is  a  little  volume  of  enduring  interest, 
preached  the  wrath  of  God  and  the  pains  of  hell  in  a 
voice  of  melting  music.  The  indomitable  THOMAS  HOOKER 
of  Hartford,  "  who,  when  he  was  doing  his  Master's  work, 
would  put  a  king  into  his  pocket,"  intermitted  his  pulpit 
thunders  with  words  of  purest  Christian  insight.  The 
very  head  and  front  of  that  theocracy,  JOHN  COTTON  of 
Boston,  was  by  nature  most  gentle  and  benign.  The 
illustrious  ROGER  WILLIAMS,  founder  of  Providence,  who, 
becoming  too  lively  a  thorn  in  the  side  of  intolerance, 
was  driven  by  Cotton  and  his  following  out  of  Massa 
chusetts  Colony,  appeared  to  the  Pilgrims  of  Plymouth 
Plantation  "  a  man  lovely  in  his  carriage  "  and  "  having 
many  precious  parts."  But  they  battled  fiercely,  these 
old  warriors  of  the  Lord,  and  the  spent  artillery  of  their 
combats  makes  a  prodigious  pile  of  sermons,  tracts,  and 
treatises.  Apart  from  controversial  writings,  in  which 
those  doughty  duellists,  John  Cotton  and  Roger  Wil 
liams,  abounded,  and  apart  from  works  of  strict  theology, 
there  remain  sermons  of  religious,  political,  and  bio 
graphical  tenor,  catechisms,  commentaries,  the  New 
England  Primer  and  the  Bay  Psalm  Book.  This  last 
was  the  first  volume  ever  printed  in  America,  and,  in 
point  of  versification,  probably  the  worst. 

These  early  New  England  preachers,  men  of  mark,  in 


I  THE  COLONIAL  PERIOD  2/ 

many  cases  thrust  out  of  large  parishes  in  England  be 
cause  of  non-conformity,  here  on  the  edge  of  the  wilder 
ness  redeemed  in  no  small  measure  what  seems  a  growing 
bigotry  and  narrowness  of  thought  by  an  austerity  of  self- 
discipline,  devoutness  of  spirit,  and  apostolic  beauty  of 
bearing  more  eloquent  than  all  the  cannonades  of  their 
theology.  This  pulpit  oratory,  chief  mental  stimulus  of 
the  times  though  it  was,  hardly  outranks  the  work  of  the 
Colonial  clergy  for  education.  Fosterers  of  the  public 
school,  presidents  and  protectors  of  the  beloved  little 
college  at  Cambridge,  the  Massachusetts  ministers  as 
pired  to  no  prouder  epitaph  than  "  a  good  scholar  and 
a  great  Christian."  They  were  not  alone  in  their  enthu 
siasm  for  learning.  The  laity  pressed  them  closely  in 
the  race.  The  classic  Cato  finds  a  New  England  par 
allel  in  Governor  Bradford,  who,  after  a  lifetime  of  sore 
labors,  sat  joyfully  down  to  the  writing  of  Hebrew  exer 
cises  :  "  Though  I  am  grown  aged,  yet  I  have  had  a  long 
ing  desire  to  see,  with  my  own  eyes,  something  of  that 
most  ancient  language  and  holy  tongue  in  which  the  law 
and  oracles  of  God  were  writ ;  and  in  which  God  and 
angels  spoke  to  the  holy  patriarchs  of  old  time ;  and 
what  names  were  given  to  things,  from  the  creation. 
And  though  I  cannot  attain  to  much  herein,  yet  I  am 
refreshed  to  have  some  glimpse  hereof  (as  Moses  saw 
the  land  of  Canaan  afar  off)." 

But  apart  from  the  Sacred  Scriptures,  literature,  in  its 
conscious  and  aesthetic  forms,  made  no  part  of  Pilgrim 
or  Puritan  concern.  Two  only  of  the  Colonial  ministers, 


28  AMERICAN   LITERATURE  CHAP. 

NATHANIEL  WARD  of  Ipswich,  re-named  from  its  Indian 
title  Agawam,  and  MICHAEL  WIGGLESWORTH  of  Maiden, 
approached  its  border-line.  The  former,  in  his  Simple 
Cobbler  of  Agawam,  produced  a  rough  anticipation  of 
Carlyle's  Sartor  Resartus.  This  pungent  satire,  pub 
lished  at  London  in  1647,  inveighs,  sometimes  with  a 
caustic  drollery,  sometimes  with  a  right  manly  vehe 
mence,  against  the  principle  of  religious  toleration,  the 
vanities  of  womankind,  and  the  state  of  contemporary 
English  politics.  "Poly-piety  is  the  greatest  impiety 
in  the  world."  "I  honor  the  woman  that  can  honor 
herself  with  her  attire ;  a  good  text  always  deserves  a 
fair  margent,"  but  as  for  a  woman  who  lives  but  to  ape 
the  newest  court  fashions,  "  I  look  at  her  as  the  very 
gizzard  of  a  trifle,  the  product  of  a  quarter  of  a  cipher, 
the  epitome  of  nothing;  fcfcter  to  be  kicked  if  sfte  were 
of  a  kickable  substance  than  .either, honored  or  humored;" 
"  A  king  that  lives  by  law,  lives  by  love ;  and  he  that 
lives  above  law,  shall  live  under  hatred,  do  what  he  can. 
Slavery  and  knavery  go  as  seldom  asunder  as  tyranny 
and  cruelty." 

MICHAEL  WIGGLESWORTH  lived  on  into  the  eighteenth 
century,  but  his  principal  poems  belong  to  the  earlier 
Colonial  period.  He  was  better  than  his  poetry.  "  A 
little  feeble  shadow  of  a  man,"  so  sickly  from  his  youth 
up  as  to  be  sometimes  tortured  with  a  suspicion  that  he 
desired  health  more  than  holiness,  he  performed  the 
double  labor  of  preacher  and  physician.  Sensitive  of 
soul,  his  Calvinistic  faith,  loyally  held,  weighed  upon 


I  THE  COLONIAL  PERIOD  2Q 

him  with  a  great  sadness.  He  dared  not  let  himself  be 
gladsome  with  his  friends,  though  they  affectionately 
urged  that  occasional  mirth  would  "  recreate  one's  tired 
spirits  and  prolong  one's  life,"  for  he  feared  that  he 
might  come  to  forget  the  end  in  the  means  and  "  take 
pleasure  for  itself,  without  reference  to  health  and  so  to 
the  glory  of  God."  He  entered  in  his  note-book  among 
his  resolutions  :  "  Not  to  rejoice  much  in  any  creature. 
Thou  knowest  not  whether  it  shall  comfort  thee  or  tor 
ment  thee."  Even  his  love  of  study  anguished  him. 
"  I  cannot  prevail  against  that  cursed  frame,  to  think  the 
time  long  that  I  spend  in  reading  the  Word  of  God. 
Outgoings  of  heart  after  my  studies  again  get  head."  A 
Harvard  tutor,  he  cared  for  the  welfare  of  his  students 
so  ardently  as  to  become  alarmed  lest  his  "  affection  to 
them  should  so  drink  up  his  very  spirit  as  to  steal  away 
his  heart  from  God."  A  Maiden  pastor,  the  calamities 
that  befell  his  flock  he  looked  upon  as  God's  "  stroke  " 
for  his  own  sins.  "  God's  visiting  hand  has  now  plucked 
away  from  us  four  brethren  of  our  church  in  a  few  days. 
The  Lord  was  pleased  to  set  in,  and  break  my  heart, 
and  show  me  that  I  am  the  man  who  sin  unto  death  the 
precious  servants  of  God,  and  drive  God  from  the  place 
and  society  where  I  live,  and  I  pull  down  wrath."  He 
greeted  the  approach  of  death. 

"  Welcome,  sweet  Rest,  by  me  so  long  desired, 
Who  have  with  sins  and  griefs  so  long  been  tired." 

Willingly  he  took  leave  of  the  world. 


3O  AMERICAN    LITERATURE  CHAP. 

"Now,  farewell,  world,  in  which  is  not  my  treasure; 
I  have  in  thee  enjoyed  but  little  pleasure." 

His  dying  thoughts  of  New  England  were  gloomy, 
especially  in  regard  to  her 

"  young  brood  and  rising  generation, 
Wanton  and  proud,  ripe  for  God's  indignation." 

His  sinking  voice  urged  on  his  fellow-soldiers  in  the 
Holy  War. 

"  Farewell,  sweet  saints  of  God,  Christ's  little  number; 
Beware,  lest  you,  through  sloth,  securely  slumber. 
Stand  to  your  spiritual  arms,  and  keep  your  watch." 

For  his  sorrow's  sake,  let  his  poems  be  forgiven  him, 
even  his  lurid  Day  of  Doom,  frightfully  expressive  as  it 
is  of  the  extremest  type  of  Calvinism.  This  crudely 
fashioned  ballad,  "  one  more  insult  to  God,"  was  more 
widely  circulated  in  New  England,  more  largely  bought, 
more  closely  read,  more  deeply  graven  on  the  popular 
mind  than  any  poem  since. 

X.  The  Tenth  Muse.  —  During  the  early  Colonial 
period  New  England  enjoyed  one  purely  literary  sen 
sation  and  only  one.  The  records  of  Bradford  and 
Winthrop  were  supplemented  by  more  homely  chroni 
cles,  —  The  Wonder-  Working  Providence  of  Edward 
Johnson,  founder  of  Woburn,  a  Puritan  of  the  Puritans ; 
accounts  of  the  Pequot  War  bluntly  penned  by  Major 
Mason,  Captain  Underbill,  and  others;  and  the  Indian 
treatises  of  Daniel  Gookin,  who  should  be  famed  with 
Eliot,  Penn,  and  Roger  Williams  for  justice  and  mercy 


I  THE  COLONIAL  PERIOD  31 

toward  the  native  inhabitants  of  the  land.  Descriptions 
of  the  New  World,  begun  in  the  journals  of  Bradford, 
Winslow,  and  Higginson,  were  continued  by  Wood's 
New  England's  Prospect  and  Josselyn's  New  England'' 's 
Rarities.  One  Thomas  Morton,  who  established,  where 
Quincy  now  stands,  a  settlement  known  as  Mount  Wol- 
laston  or  Merry  Mount,  in  which  the  old  English  revels 
were  maintained  with,  perhaps,  the  freer  license  of  a 
wilder  soil,  should  be  added  to  the  list  of  descriptive 
writers  on  the  strength  of  his  New  English  Canaan. 
In  this  he  took  occasion  to  satirize  the  Plymouth  colo 
nists,  who,  scandalized  by  his  Maypole  and,  it  may  be, 
by  more  flagrant  misdemeanors,  had  bundled  him  back 
to  England.  These  works,  as  well  as  the  theological 
publications  of  the  time,  were  written  for  other  than 
artistic  ends.  The  Day  of  Doom  is  more  akin  to 
sermon  than  to  poem.  But  at  the  very  middle  of  the 
century,  a  little  volume  was  published  in  London  with 
the  startling  title  The  Tenth  Muse  lately  sprung  up  in 
America.  The  "gentlewoman  in  those  parts,"  so  an 
nounced  as  author  on  the  title-page,  was  Mistress  ANNE 
BRADSTREET,  resident  near  Andover. 

Of  English  birth,  she  was  four  years  younger  than 
Milton.  Her  father,  Thomas  Dudley,  well-born,  well- 
bred,  and  wedded  to  a  "  gentlewoman  of  fortune,"  was 
an  iron  Puritan.  At  sixteen  Anne  Dudley  married 
Simon  Bradstreet,  son  of  a  non-conformist  minister,  and 
himself  Master  of  Arts  of  Cambridge  University.  Two 
years  after  the  marriage  came  the  emigration  to  Massa- 


32  AMERICAN   LITERATURE  CHAP. 

chusetts,  where  both  Dudley  and  Bradstreet  took  place 
among  the  leaders,  each  succeeding,  in  due  time,  to  the 
dignity  of  the  governor's  chair.  Mistress  Bradstreet,  in 
like  degree,  held  high  rank  among  the  Puritan  dames, 
no  such  "  starched  pieces  of  austerity  "  as  they  looked  to 
the  laughing  eyes  of  London  playwrights,  but  brave  and 
tender  women  whose  praise  was  in  their  homes.  The 
love-letters  of  Mistress  Winthrop  to  her  husband  are 
as  poetic  with  their  wifely  trust  and  sweetness  as  the 
rhymed  addresses  of  Anne  Bradstreet  to  hers. 

But  our  pioneer  blue-stocking,  however  devotedly  she 
cherished  her  husband  and  their  "  eight  birds  hatcht  in 
one  nest,"  however  diligently  she  polished  her  thirteen 
pewter  platters  and  four  large  silver  spoons,  felt  obliged 
to  apologize  for  her  intrusion  into  the  realm  of  letters. 

"  I  am  obnoxious  to  each  carping  tongue 
Who  says  my  hand  a  needle  better  fits, 
A  Poet's  pen  all  scorn  I  should  thus  wrong, 
For  such  despite  they  cast  on  Female  wits; 
If  what  I  do  prove  well,  it  won't  advance, 
They'll  say  it's  stol'n,  or  else  it  was  by  chance." 

Very  woman  in  this,  she  disarms  masculine  criticism 
by  a  touch  of  flattering  meekness. 

"  Let  Greeks  be  Greeks,  and  women  what  they  are, 
Men  have  precedency  and  still  excel, 
It  is  but  vain  unjustly  to  wage  war; 
Men  can  do  best  and  women  know  it  well, 
Preeminence  in  all  and  each  is  yours, 
Yet  grant  some  small  acknowledgment  of  ours." 

This  carried  the  day.     Even  the  redoubtable  Nathan- 


I  THE  COLONIAL  PERIOD  33 

iel  Ward,  while  not  retracting  his  opinion  as  to  the 
"  squirrels'  brains  "  of  women  of  fashion,  penned  coup 
lets  in  Madam  Bradstreet's  honor,  making  Apollo  say,  in 
somewhat  nasal  note : 

"  It  half  revives  my  chill  frost-bitten  blood, 
To  see  a  woman  once  do  aught  that's  good." 

Other  clerical  connoisseurs  gave  freer  rein  to  their 
pride  and  delight  in  New  England's  prodigy.  The  Rev. 
Mr.  Norton,  for  instance,  was  confident  that  if  Virgil 
were  to 

"  hear  her  lively  strain, 
He  would  condemn  his  works  to  fire  again." 

Unhappily,  these  verses,  hailed  so  jubilantly  on  our 
songless  coast,  are  essentially  unpoetic.  Not  merely 
stiff  and  dull,  not  merely  cramped  with  verbal  crotchets 
fashioned  after  a  false  model  of  literary  elegance,  their 
fatal  error  lies  in  reproducing  the  author's  reading  in 
lieu  of  her  experience.  Glorious  it  would  have  been 
to  serve  as  the  Miriam  of  the  Puritan  exodus,  to  give 
lyric  voice  to  the  mingled  emotions  of  those  mighty 
years,  but  this  "  Grave  Matron "  chose  to  transcribe 
what  she  deemed  useful  pages  of  the  ancient  histories, 
anatomies,  and  what  not  that  she  found  among  her 
father's  fifty  books.  In  laborious  measures  she  sets 
out  the  Four  Constitutions,  Four  Ages  of  Man,  Four 
Seasons  of  the  Year,  Four  Monarchies,  her  staid  Pegasus 
seeming  to  go  forever  on  all  fours.  An  occasional  elegy 
or  epitaph  is  as  much  of  a  relief  as  this  antiquated  vol- 


34  AMERICAN   LITERATURE  CHAP. 

ume  grants.  It  has  not  even  the  interest  of  local  color. 
Its  birds  are  nightingales ;  its  flowers  primroses. 

XI.  The  Later  Colonial  Period  in  New  England.  — 
To  an  age  of  scholars  turned  backwoodsmen  succeeded 
the  age  of  backwoodsmen  striving  after  scholarship. 
New  England,  once  rude  and  heroic,  had  become  pro 
vincial.  The  inheritors  were  less  than  the  achievers. 
The  training  of  Harvard  was  not  the  training  of  Oxford. 
The  Atlantic  grew  wider  and  wider.  Still  the  Puritan 
conscience,  the  middle-class  English  thrift,  the  unweary 
ing  pulpit,  and  the  ubiquitous  little  school- house  were 
doing  their  steadfast  work. 

Piety  was  yet  the  dominant  tone.  The  meeting-house 
had  shed  its  cannon  and  assumed  a  steeple,  but  its  inter 
nal  discipline  was  hardly  relaxed.  It  remained  a  bleak 
and  austere  place  of  long  prayers  and  longer  sermons, 
and  of  most  discordant  singing  with  little  aid  of  printed 
notes  and  none  of  instrument.  There  were  no  stoves. 
Sometimes  it  chanced  that  midwinter  babies  were 
sprinkled  with  baptismal  water  for  which  the  ice  in 
the  christening  bowl  had  to  be  broken,  the  parents 
allowing  themselves  a  twinge  of  pride  if  the  tiny  Puritan 
endured  this  ordeal  without  a  cry.  Sometimes  the  com 
munion  bread  "was  frozen  pretty  hard  and  rattled 
sadly  into  the  plates."  The  congregation  embraced 
the  whole  community,  seated  by  scale  of  social  conse 
quence.  Magistracy,  wealth,  learning,  military  service, 
age,  were  factors  in  dignity.  This  arrangement,  with 
the  delicate  distinctions  involved,  must  have  ruffled 


I  THE  COLONIAL  PERIOD  35 

the   Sabbath   peace   of    many   a   gentle    saint,    on    her 

way 

"  To  the  goodly  house  of  worship,  where,  in  order  due  and  fit, 
As  by  public  vote  directed,  classed  and  ranked  the  people  sit; 
Mistress  first  and  goodwife  after,  clerkly  squire  before  the  clown, 
From  the  brave  coat  lace-embroidered,  to  the  gray  frock,  shading 
down." 

Men  and  women  were  seated  apart,  spinsters,  ungal- 
lantly  known  in  Boston  as  thornbacks,  by  themselves, 
negroes  by  themselves,  boys  by  themselves.  These  last, 
massed  in  the  gallery  or  on  the  pulpit  stairs,  gave  the 
tithing-man  most  trouble,  although  his  knobbed  rod  of 
office  had  occasionally  to  tap  the  nodding  periwig  of 
some  grave  elder,  or  tickle  with  its  pendent  foxtail  the 
drooping  eyelids  of  a  tired  dame.  The  preachers  still 
maintained  intellectual  ascendency,  but  political  author 
ity  was  slipping  from  their  hands.  The  franchise  had 
passed  beyond  the  line  of  church  membership.  The 
REV.  JOHN  WISE  of  Ipswich,  an  early  example  of  muscular 
Christianity,  overthrew  a  covert  design  of  the  Boston 
ministers  to  call  New  England  back  to  a  government  by 
will  of  the  clergy.  But  the  pen  was  still  their  own.  It 
has  been  estimated  that  of  the  five  hundred  and  fifty 
publications,  known  to  have  been  produced  in  America 
from  1706  to  1718,  all  but  eighty- four  were  on  religious 
topics,  forty-nine  of  the  eighty-four  being  almanacs. 
Eminent  in  the  ranks  of  clerical  authorship  was  REV. 
MATTHEW  BYLES  of  Boston,  a  genuine  wit  and  reputed  in 
his  day  a  poet  who  bade  fair 

"  to  rise  and  sing  and  rival  Pope." 


36  AMERICAN   LITERATURE  CHAP. 

No  compliment  could  have  pleased  the  persistent  old 
Tory  better,  for  Pope  was  the  star  of  his  literary  idolatry. 
The  Rev.  Nicholas  Noyes  of  Salem  had  a  special  gift  for 
the  fabrication  of  punning  elegies.  The  Rev.  Urian  Oakes, 
minister  at  Cambridge  and  president  of  Harvard  College, 
commanded  an  eloquent  prose  and  could,  on  occasion, 
turn  off  a  respectable  copy  of  verses.  School-masters,  too, 
were  coming  to  the  fore.  Peter  Folger  of  Nantucket, 
grandfather  of  Benjamin  Franklin,  protested  in  doggerel 
verse,  with  admirable  good  sense  and  good  heart,  against 
the  persecuting  spirit  of  the  magistracy  and  "college 
men." 

"  Though  you  do  many  prayers  make, 

And  add  fasting  thereto, 
Yet  if  your  hands  be  full  of  blood, 

All  this  will  never  do." 

Cambridge  had  a  poetic  school-master  in  Benjamin 
Toinpson,  who  shook  his  head  over  New  England's  in 
crease  of  domestic  comforts  and  fluently  bewailed  the 
good  old  times.  But  although  the  coast  towns,  after 
King  Philip's  overthrow,  were  at  leisure  to  cultivate  the 
arts  of  peace,  the  frontier  still  dwelt  under  the  terror  of 
tomahawk  and  scalping-knife.  Mary  Rowlandson,  the 
pastor's  wife  at  Lancaster,  which  was  destroyed  by  the 
savages  in  1676,  underwent,  with  a  wounded  child  in  her 
arms,  an  agony  of  Indian  captivity.  Ransomed  by  the 
good  offices  of  the  women  of  Boston,  she  wrote  the  story 
of  her  sufferings  in  a  spirited,  straight-forward  English 
that  makes  them  vivid  yet.  John  Williams,  pastor  of  the 


I  THE  COLONIAL  PERIOD  37 

brave  little  outpost  at  Deerfield,  has  left  a  touching  nar 
rative  of  a  like  experience  occurring  so  late  as  1704. 
The  struggle  for  a  foothold,  however,  was  over.  The 
supremacy  of  the  white  man  was  secured.  The  road 
to  literature  lay  open,  but  artistic  stimulus  and  inheri 
tance  were  lacking.  Europe  was  no  longer  a  present 
memory,  and  Puritanism  had  yet  to  make  friends  with 
beauty. 

XII.  Samuel  Sewall.  —  The  Puritans  had,  from  the 
outset,  a  utilitarian  bent.  Combined  with  a  peculiar 
excitability  of  temperament,  which  betrayed  itself  in  the 
witchcraft  mania,  in  religious  rhapsodies  and  trances,  in 
the  groanings  and  outcries  that  attended  the  Great  Awak 
ening,  was  an  element  of  solid  earth.  The  transcendental 
enthusiasm  was  conserved  by  the  clergy  to  flower  in 
Jonathan  Edwards  and  Ralph  Waldo  Emerson.  The 
shrewd,  thrifty,  practical  quality,  the  very  essence  of  the 
average  Yankee,  was  relegated  to  the  laymen.  The  hard- 
headed  honesty  belonging  to  this  latter  type  is  well  exem 
plified  where 

"  Stately  and  slow,  with  thoughtful  air, 
His  black  cap  hiding  his  whitened  hair, 
Walks  the  Judge  of  the  great  Assize, 
Samuel  Sewall  the  good  and  wise ;  " 

but  the  Yankee  humor,  with  its  dry,  cool  perception  of 
incongruities,  its  hands-in-the-pockets  survey  of  the  drol 
leries  of  the  universe,  is  hardly  manifest  in  the  make-up 
of  the  decorous  magistrate. 

He  was  an  amiable  and  honorable  man,  whose  outer 


38  AMERICAN   LITERATURE  CHAP. 

and  inner  life  for  fifty- six  years,  laid  open  upon  the  pages 
of  his  private  Diary,  bears  the  light  as  few  men's  lives 
could  do,  but  he  had  a  leaning  toward  creature  comforts 
and  a  respect  for  shillings  and  pence  prophetic  of  the 
Yankee  constitution.  In  the  beginning  the  spiritually 
minded  minister  of  Salem,  Francis  Higginson,  had  warned 
his  flock  against  an  undue  care  for  money-getting.  "  Let 
it  never  be  forgotten  that  our  New  England  was  origi 
nally  a  plantation  of  religion  and  not  a  plantation  of  trade. 
And  if  there  be  a  man  among  you  who  counts  religion  as 
twelve,  and  the  world  as  thirteen,  let  such  a  one  remem 
ber  that  he  hath  neither  the  spirit  of  a  true  New  England 
man,  nor  yet  of  a  sincere  Christian." 

The  Puritan  laity  of  the  Provincial  Age  were  strict  in 
church  attendance  and  conspicuously  upright  in  con 
duct,  but  doubtless  there  were  many,  who,  like  Madam 
Knight,  being  well  entertained  in  the  present,  were  poig 
nantly  reminded  of  the  hereafter  only  on  occasions  of 
special  stress.  This  lady,  of  delightful  enterprise  and 
spirit,  journeyed  on  horseback  from  Boston  to  New  York, 
via  New  Haven,  in  1704,  and  wrote  a  lively  narrative  of 
her  adventures.  It  is  still  an  entertaining  little  chronicle. 
The  discomforts  of  wood  roads  and  swamps,  of  rough 
fords  and  bridges  "  very  tottering,"  as  well  as  husk  beds 
and  fare  contrary  to  her  "  notion  of  cookery,"  she  details 
with  a  certain  heroic  relish.  Even  so  early,  the  sense 
of  being  a  Bostonian  enabled  one  to  rise  superior  to  all 
impertinences  of  man  and  nature.  Nevertheless,  there 
were  moments  of  peril  in  which  this  vivacious  pilgrim 


I  THE  COLONIAL  PERIOD  39 

fell  to  the  reflection,  apparently  well  founded,  that  her 
"  call  was  very  questionable." 

This  lump  of  earth  in  Puritan  character,  this  homely 
common-sense,  served  as  moral  ballast.  In  the  dark 
days  of  the  witchcraft  delusion,  a  plain  merchant  of 
Boston,  Robert  Calef,  stood  for  justice  and  humanity 
against  the  great  preachers,  Increase  and  Cotton  Mather, 
whose  fanatical  zeal  was  the  chief  agent  in  furthering 
that  riot  of  superstition.  The  Mathers,  blinded  to  the 
end  by  passionate  credulity,  never  saw  the  blood-stain 
on  their  hands,  but  Judge  Sewall  sorely  repented  his 
share  in  that  bad  business  and,  with  characteristic  integ 
rity,  made  public  confession  of  his  fault  in  the  Old  South 
Meeting-house.  It  was  he  who  published  the  first  anti- 
slavery  tract  in  America,  —  The  Selling  of  Joseph. 

It  is  not  his  tracts  that  we  read  to-day,  however,  but 
his  Diary,  which  achieves  by  a  succession  of  simplest 
touches  at  once  a  portrait  of  the  man  and  a  picture  of 
the  times.  Cozy  times  they  were,  for  all  their  Puritan 
austerities  and  their  public  anxieties  and  losses.  Indian 
alarms,  threatened  charters,  tyrannical  governors,  still 
left  quiet  space  for  social  and  domestic  cheer.  There 
was  abundance  of  marmalade  and  blackcherry  brandy, 
feasts  as  well  as  fasts,  weddings  as  well  as  funerals, 
though  perhaps  the  chastened  taste  of  the  day  enjoyed 
the  funerals  more.  Sewall  used  to  find  a  visit  to  his 
family  tomb,  with  its  accumulating  store  of  coffins,  "  an 
awful  yet  pleasing  treat."  Sunday  services  and  Thurs 
day  evening  lectures,  family  prayers  and  private  devo- 


4O  AMERICAN  LITERATURE  CHAP. 

tions,  scripture  readings  and  catechisings,  allowed  inter 
vals  of  time  for  "  a  little  winter-love  in  a  dark  corner." 
It  is  diverting  enough  to  play  the  eaves-dropper  while 
this  gallant  but  prudent  grandsire  woos  the  well-to-do  old 
ladies  of  his  not  always  successful  choice  with  tracts  and 
printed  sermons,  with  "  one-half  pound  of  sugar  almonds, 
cost  three  shillings  per  pound "  and  "  gingerbread 
wrapped  up  in  a  clean  sheet  of  paper."  A  share  of 
his  goodies  sometimes  fell  to  little  children,  whose  lot 
in  that  grave  community  was  not  without  its  compensa 
tions.  A  four-year-old  might  get  whipped  "pretty 
smartly"  for  his  "playing  at  prayer  time  and  eating 
when  return  thanks,"  but  it  was  in  those  Colonial  twi 
lights  that  over  a  Boston  cradle  were  first  crooned  the 
melodies  of  a  humble  poetess  better  beloved  by  time 
than  the  Tenth  Muse  or  any  rhyming  theologian  of  them 
all,  —  Mother  Goose. 

XIII.  The  Mather  Dynasty  is  a  term  not  inappropri 
ately  applied  to  the  ruling  family  among  the  New  Eng 
land  clergy.  The  emigrant,  Richard  Mather,  who  arrived 
in  Boston  in  1635,  was  a  Lancashire  man  and  an  Oxonian. 
After  preaching  for  fifteen  years  in  England  without  a 
surplice,  he  had  been  silenced  for  non-conformity.  Arriv 
ing  in  Massachusetts,  he  promptly  gathered  a  church  at 
Dorchester  and  there  "continued,  a  blessing  unto  all 
the  churches  in  this  wilderness  until  his  dying  day,  even 
for  near  upon  four  and  thirty  years  together." 

This  stern  old  patriarch  fathers  a  line  of  some  eighty 
ministers.  Of  his  four  sons,  all  in  the  pulpit,  Increase, 


I  THE  COLONIAL  PERIOD  41 

the  youngest,  became  the  most  prominent  New  Englander 
of  his  time.  Graduated  from  Harvard  at  seventeen,  he 
preached  at  eighteen  in  his  father's  church,  "when 
the  whole  auditory  were  greatly  affected  with  the  light 
and  flame  in  which  the  rare  youth  appeared  unto  them ; 
especially  was  his  father  so,  who  could  scarce  pronounce 
the  blessing."  He  went  at  once  abroad,  where  he  took 
his  Master's  degree  at  Trinity  College,  Dublin,  preached 
awhile  in  Devonshire  and  elsewhere,  but  gave  way  before 
the  Restoration  and  returned  to  America.  Here  he  mar 
ried  the  daughter  of  John  Cotton,  whose  surname  was 
given  to  their  first-born  son. 

Taking  charge  of  the  North  Church  in  Boston,  a  pas 
torate  in  which  he  remained  for  sixty  years,  and  presently 
adding  to  this  burden  the  Presidency  of  Harvard,  which 
he  retained  for  sixteen  years,  Increase  Mather  held  the 
chief  influence  in  the  colony.  In  him  the  sway  of  the 
old  theocracy  culminated.  He  moved,  the  commanding 
figure,  through  the  political  agitations  of  the  time.  The 
government  of  the  New  England  settlements  had,  from 
the  first,  unconsciously  looked  toward  independence. 
The  Pilgrims,  while  yet  on  the  "Mayflower,"  had  by 
written  compact  organized  themselves  into  "  a  civil  body 
politic."  The  Puritans,  soon  after  landing,  subscribed 
to  a  solemn  agreement.  Under  the  original  charter  of 
Massachusetts,  the  freemen,  who  were  the  church  mem 
bers,  elected  the  magistrates.  The  citizens,  trained  in 
the  public  schools  and  churches  to  intelligence  and 
virtue,  were  educated  in  democratic  methods  by  the 


42  AMERICAN   LITERATURE  CHAP. 

town- meeting.  But  under  Charles  II.,  when  the  colo 
nists  were  faint  and  spent  with  the  fierce  struggle  of 
King  Philip's  War,  the  charter  of  Massachusetts,  after 
a  long  and  passionate  resistance,  was  annulled.  Old 
England  made  a  bad  matter  worse  by  a  tone  with 
which  America  grew  later  more  familiar,  and  the  blood 
of  New  England  waxed  hot :  "  And  to  complete  the 
oppression,  when  they  .  .  .  claimed  the  privilege  of 
Englishmen,  they  were  scoffingly  told,  Those  things 
would  not  follow  them  to  the  ends  of  the  earth.  Un 
natural  insult !  Must  the  brave  adventurer,  who  with 
the  hazard  of  his  life  and  fortune  seeks  out  new  climates 
to  enrich  his  mother  country,  be  denied  those  common 
rights,  which  his  countrymen  enjoy  at  home  in  ease  and 
indolence?" 

Sent  to  England  as  agent  for  the  colony,  Increase 
Mather  saved  what  he  could  for  Massachusetts  from 
the  wreck  of  her  first  liberties.  He  obtained  from 
William  of  Orange  a  new  charter,  stricter  than  the  old, 
but  more  liberal  than  those  granted  to  most  of  the  royal 
provinces.  The  colony  of  Plymouth  was  now  incor 
porated  with  that  of  Massachusetts,  where  henceforth 
the  governor  and  certain  other  officers  were  to  be  ap 
pointed  by  the  king,  while  a  property  qualification  for 
such  franchise  as  remained  was  substituted  for  church 
membership.  This  provision  it  was  which  broke  down 
the  old  theocracy.  Increase  Mather  was  the  last  of 
the  clerical  autocrats. 

For  a  time,  however,  his  son  Cotton  appeared  no  less 


Reproduced  from  the  fine  steel  plate  in  "The 
Library  of  American  Literature,"  by  permission 
of  the  publisher,  William  Evarts  Benjamin. 


I  THE  COLONIAL   PERIOD  43 

a  personage.  More  precocious  than  his  father,  more 
prolific  in  books  and  pamphlets,  he  illustrates  never 
theless  the  decline  of  the  clergy  both  in  outward  power 
and  in  actual  sanity  and  breadth  of  thought.  As  a 
mere  child,  trotting  with  solemn  countenance  to  Master 
Cheever's  school,  he  evinced  the  prig.  "  I  began  to 
pray"  his  record  runs,  "even  when  I  began  to  speak. 
...  I  used  secret  prayer,  not  confining  myself  to  forms 
in  it :  and  yet  I  composed  forms  of  prayer  for  my  school 
mates  (I  suppose  when  I  was  about  seven  or  eight  years 
old)  and  obliged  them  to  pray.  ...  I  rebuked  my  play 
mates  for  their  wicked  words  and  ways  ;  and  sometimes 
I  suffered  from  them  the  persecution  of  not  only  scoffs 
but  blows  also,  for  my  rebukes."  We  do  not  hear  that 
his  loss  was  keenly  regretted  when,  at  the  age  of  twelve, 
widely  read  in  Greek  and  Latin  authors,  he  left  school 
for  Harvard.  He  was  not  nineteen  on  taking,  from  his 
father's  hand,  his  second  degree,  his  thesis  being  "  Puncta 
Hebraica  sunt  Originis  Divinae."  Within  six  months  he 
was  called  to  the  North  Church  as  his  father's  colleague. 
He  prayed  at  his  own  ordination  one  hour  and  a  quarter 
and  preached  for  nearly  two  hours,  —  a  sample  of  his 
quality  which  those  bygone  parishioners  endured  with 
out  flinching.  Both  Mathers  died  in  this  ministry,  the 
father,  fretful  with  failure,  neglect,  and  infirmity,  only  five 
years  before  the  son.  Both  were  marvels  of  diligence, 
as  became  the  scions  of  old  Richard  Mather,  whose 
set  of  "  Resolutions  "  included  one  against  "  excessive 
sleeping "  and  another  against  "  misspending  precious 


/j/|  AMERICAN   LITERATURE  CHAP. 

time."  But  Increase  Mather,  although  he  often  passed 
sixteen  hours  of  the  twenty-four  in  his  study  and  printed 
during  his  lifedays  nearly  one  hundred  treatises  and 
sermons,  went  in  and  out  among  men  and  dealt  with 
open-air  questions.  Cotton  was  a  bookworm,  who  lived 
to  read,  and  read  to  write.  His  brother  Nathaniel, 
pursuing  a  like  course,  died  at  nineteen.  "  While  he 
thus  devoured  books,  it  came  to  pass  that  his  books 
devoured  him."  Rarely  there  breaks  from  Cotton 
Mather  the  cry  of  human  nature.  "  Tis  dreadful  cold. 
My  inkglass  in  my  standish  is  froze  and  split  in  my  very 
stove.  My  ink  in  my  pen  suffers  a  congelation."  But 
for  all  the  halting  of  his  icy  quill,  on  he  wrote,  putting 
forth  from  that  eerie  study,  'whose  air  was  thick  with 
visions,  hard  upon  four  hundred  publications.  Some 
were  in  French,  Spanish,  Indian,  while  his  English, 
with  its  peppering  of  Hebrew,  Latin,  and  Greek,  its 
twisted  phrases,  tortured  puns,  and  words  of  preposterous 
coinage,  is  no  less  a  display  of  erudition.  Sixty  fasts, 
twenty-two  vigils,  and  fourteen  books  made  up  his  sheaf 
for  a  single  year.  Yet  his  groan  was  ever :  "  Alas,  of 
my  unfruitfulness  ! " 

This  judgment  was  more  accurate  than  the  judge  him 
self  suspected.  That  lean,  ascetic  figure,  running  under 
the  lash  of  terrible  effort,  of  unremitting  discipline,  was 
off  the  track  of  truth.  For  lack  of  that  preserving  salt, 
his  tomes  and  tracts,  like  his  father's,  have  practically 
perished.  His  learning  had  become  a  blur  before  his 
brain.  His  piety  had  forgotten  mercy.  The  darkest 


I  THE  COLONIAL  PERIOD  45 

quality  of  Puritanism,  the  belief  in  a  supernatural  malice, 
deeply  tinged  the  minds  of  both  father  and  son.  So 
sensible  a  man  as  Winthrop  held  that  demons  haunted 
the  wilderness  of  the  New  World.  Wigglesworth  was 
confident  that  the  devil  had  America  for  his  peculiar 
"den."  Increase  Mather's  most  memorable  book,  Essay 
for  the  Recording  of  Illustrious  Providences,  hears  Satan 
in  the  thunder  storm.  The  chief  writings  of  Cotton 
Mather,  dealing  as  they  largely  do  with  the  witchcraft 
murders,  whose  stain  shows  red  upon  his  priestly  gar 
ments,  have  small  hold  on  human  reverence.  Yet  men 
still  turn  with  pleasure  and  profit  the  curious,  uncritical 
pages  of  his  magnum  opus, 

"That  quaint  Magnalia  Christi,  with  all  strange  and  marvellous 

things, 
Heaped  up  huge  and  undigested,  like  the  chaos  Ovid  sings." 

XIV.  Jonathan  Edwards  has  fared  better  than  Cotton 
Mather  at  the  hands  of  posterity.  Whatever  may  be 
thought  of  his  theology,  his  was  a  shining  spirit.  At 
last,  in  the  musings  of  a  marvellous  boy,  New  England 
strikes  the  note  of  sestheticism.  The  claims  of  art  had 
as  yet  been  scarcely  recognized.  Leaning  gravestones 
and  faded  samplers  tell  a  dismal  tale  of  Puritan  taste. 
The  Magnalia  mentions  a  "limner"  who  was  settled 
in  the  colonies  by  1667.  In  tne  earty  nah°  of  the  eigh 
teenth  century,  New  Jersey  had  a  Scotch  portrait-painter, 
John  Watson,  who  made  what  was  probably  the  first  col 
lection  of  pictures  in  America.  His  little  studio,  with 
the  shutters  divided  into  squares,  on  each  of  which  was 


46  AMERICAN   LITERATURE  CHAP. 

painted  an  heroic  head,  was  the  gazing-stock  of  the 
neighborhood.  The  first  studio  in  Boston  was  opened 
by  John  Smybert,  also  a  Scotchman.  To  him  we  owe 
a  likeness  of  Jonathan  Edwards,  while  to  Pelham, 
another  portrait-painter,  who  was,  too,  an  engraver  and 
teacher  of  drawing,  we  are  indebted  for  that  of  Cotton 
Mather.  \Domestic  architecture,  however,  was  well  ad 
vanced  before  the  close  of  the  Colonial  period.  Espe 
cially  in  the  seaboard  towns,  enriched  through  the  West 
Indian  trade  and  favorably  situated  for  the  obtaining  of 
material,  the  building  of  stately  homes  was  much  in 
vogue.  Gambrelled  and  gabled  roofs,  white-pillared 
porches,  diamond  panes,  fantastic  knockers,  sweet,  old- 
fashioned  gardens,  still  distinguish  those  early  dwellings, 
within  which  that  personal  dignity  of  the  Puritans,  well 
becoming  the  elect  of  the  Almighty,  uttered  itself  in 
rich  and  handsome  furnishings,  —  mahogany  highboys 
glittering  with  brass  handles,  rows  of  figured  china  in 
divers  colors,  canopy  beds  with  twisted  posts,  sideboards 
elaborately  carved  with  vine-leaves  and  grape-baskets,  y 
In  no  such  elegance  as  this  was  the  youth  of  Jonathan 
Edwards  nurtured.  The  colony  of  Connecticut,  whither 
Thomas  Hooker,  finding  Massachusetts  too  small  for 
John  Cotton  and  himself,  originally  led  his  flock,  had 
secured  her  charter-liberties  through  the  polished  diplo 
macy  of  her  governor,  John  Winthrop  the  younger.  In 
reality  most  prosperous  of  all  the  colonies,  her  fashions 
of  life,  especially  in  the  smaller  towns  and  villages,  were 
frugal  and  modest.  The  East  Windsor  parsonage,  where 


I  THE  COLONIAL  PERIOD  47 

Jonathan  Edwards  was  the  only  boy  among  eleven  chil 
dren,  could  hardly  have  been  luxurious,  when  the  meet 
ing-house  was  not  even  furnished  with  pews.  Yale, 
from  which  he  was  graduated  with  highest  honors  before 
reaching  the  age  of  seventeen,  had  not  so  much  as  a 
fixed  abode.  Born  with  the  eighteenth  century,  and 
speaking  Latin  from  its  birth,  this  hopeful  young  college, 
thriving  in  spite  of  its  nomadic  life,  had  early  attracted 
the  approval  of  Cotton  Mather,  who  longed  to  see 
established  there  that  inflexible  orthodoxy  from  which, 
to  the  intense  pain  of  his  father  and  himself,  Harvard 
was  already  departing. 

But  upon  the  eyes  of  the  sensitive  boy  and  spiritual 
student  had  dawned  the  vision  of  nature  as  the  veil  of 
God.  This  revelation  sufficed  his  youth,  making  the 
spoils  of  wealth  superfluous.  When  in  his  college  note 
book  he  defined  nothing  as  "  the  same  that  the  sleeping 
rocks  do  dream  of,"  he  held  place  among  the  poets. 
In  those  early  days  his  soul  walked  the  bright  table 
lands  of  Plato,  of  Spinoza,  of  St.  John.  He  adored  the 
glory  of  the  Eternal,  beholding  in  sun  and  field  and  river 
"emanations  or  shadows"  of  the  divine  Beauty,  "the 
footsteps  of  His  favor."  This  Spirit  of  God  "  overspread 
and  cast  abroad  upon  the  whole  earth  and  universe  " 
he  recognized  as  "infinite  general  love."  As  with  matur 
ing  life  he  entered  more  and  more  into  religious  con 
sciousness,  as  the  "sense  of  divine  things  kindled  a 
sweet  burning"  in  his  heart,  his  "calm  rapture"  was 
augmented. —  "God's  excellency,  his  wisdom,  his  purity 


48  AMERICAN   LITERATURE  CHAP. 

and  love,  seemed  to  appear  in  everything,  —  in  the  sun, 
moon,  and  stars ;  in  clouds  and  blue  sky ;  in  the  grass, 
flowers,  trees ;  in  the  water  and  all  nature,  which  used 
greatly  to  fix  my  mind.  I  often  used  to  sit  and  view  the 
moon  for  continuance,  and  in  the  day  spent  much  time 
in  viewing  the  clouds  and  sky,  to  behold  the  sweet  glory 
of  God  in  these  things ;  in  the  meantime  singing  forth, 
with  a  low  voice,  my  contemplations  of  the  Creator  and 
Redeemer." 

The  wrench  by  which  he  brought  himself  into  an  ac 
ceptance  of  Calvinistic  theology  seems  to  have  dis 
torted  all  his  development.  "From  my  childhood  up, 
my  mind  had  been  full  of  objections  against  the  doctrine 
of  God's  sovereignty,  in  choosing  whom  He  would  to 
eternal  life,  and  rejecting  whom  He  pleased,  leaving  them 
eternally  to  perish  and  be  everlastingly  tormented  in 
hell.  It  used  to  appear  like  a  horrible  doctrine  to  me." 
But  apparently  accounting  it  his  duty  to  believe,  he  faced 
that  tragic  creed  without  blenching,  until  to  his  enthusi 
astic  heart  it  took  on  a  strange  beauty  of  its  own.  "  The 
doctrine  has  very  often  appeared  exceedingly  pleasant, 
bright,  and  sweet.  But  my  first  conviction  was  not  so." 

Installed  as  pastor  over  the  Northampton  church, 
wedded  to  a  radiant  girl  with  the  spirit  of  a  mystic 
and  a  devotee,  he  presents  a  twofold  aspect.  A 
preacher  of  wrath,  terrifying  his  audiences  with  sermons 
unbearably  graphic  in  their  effort  to  impress  his  deep 
conviction  that  the  "  bulk  of  mankind  do  throng  "  to 
hell,  with  Augustine  and -Calvin  conceiving  God  as  the 


I  THE  COLONIAL  PERIOD  49 

one  irresistible  Will  of  a  helpless  universe,  he  wears 
nevertheless  the  halo  of  a  saint.  The  words  "  sweetness 
and  light,"  as  frequent  with  him  as  with  Matthew  Arnold, 
describe  him  best.  Into  the  dulness  and  formality  of 
that  latter-day  Puritanism  he  shot  such  electric  thrill 
of  emotion  as  produced  an  extraordinary  series  of  re 
vivals,  known  as  the  Great  Awakening.  In  general  har 
mony  with  the  work  of  Whitefield  and  the  Wesleys,  this 
conversion  impulse  shook  all  the  colonies  and  spread  to 
Scotland  and  England. 

But  their  pillar  of  flame,  a  beacon  in  the  land,  was  too 
hot  for  Northampton  to  bear.  All  the  Colonial  ortho 
doxy  believed  in  original  sin,  election  by  free  grace, 
and  everlasting  punishment.  Governor  Wolcott  of  Con 
necticut  was  deterred  (poetically)  from  suicide  by 

"  Hell's  flashes  folding  through  eternity." 

But  these  doctrines,  never  silent  in  our  honest  old 
pulpits,  were  preached  by  Edwards  with  unexampled 
and  unendurable  vividness.  Did  he  never  remember, 
when  assuring  his  shuddering  congregation  that  God 
held  them  "  over  the  pit  of  hell,  much  as  one  holds  a 
spider  or  some  loathsome  insect  over  the  fire,"  how  in 
his  fresh  boyhood  he  had  been  "very  conversant  with 
spiders,"  loving  to  watch  the  "wondrous  way  of  their 
working "  and  finding  "  everything  belonging  to  this 
insect  admirable"?  The  church  of  Northampton,  after 
the  excitement  of  the  Great  Awakening  had  ebbed, 
turned  upon  their  pastor,  much  as  Boston  baited  the 


5O  AMERICAN   LITERATURE  CHAP. 

Mathers  after  the  witchcraft  madness,  and  thrust  him 
out,  —  an  event  then  unexampled  in  the  New  England 
ministry.  Patiently  and  humbly  he  went  forty  miles  to 
the  west,  as  missionary  to  the  Stockbridge  Indians,  on  the 
extreme  frontier.  What  the  red  men  learned  from  the 
metaphysician  it  would  be  interesting  to  know,  but 
there  it  was,  in  such  rude  and  wild  surroundings,  that 
this  master  of  subtle  logic  wrote  his  famous  treatise 
on  the  Freedom  of  the  Will,  which  virtually  denies  to 
man  the  power  of  choice.  At  fifty-four,  he  reluctantly 
emerged  from  his  Stockbridge  retirement,  so  fruitful  in 
thought  and  writing,  to  assume  the  presidency  of  Prince 
ton  College,  then  scarcely  more  than  a  decade  in  age. 
A  few  weeks  later  he  died. 

In  the  school  of  theology  which  Edwards  founded, 
his  high  conception  of  God's  sovereignty  has  already 
been  brought  to  co-exist  with  a  happier  view  of  human 
destinies,  but  his  definition  of  religion,  like  his  practice, 
has  hardly  been  bettered :  "  True  religion  in  a  great 
measure  consists  in  holy  affections.  A  love  of  divine 
things  for  the  beauty  and  sweetness  of  their  moral 
excellency  is  the  spring  of  all  holy  affections." 

Edwards's  early  meditations  set  straight  toward  ideal 
ism.  He  spoke  a  common  language  with  Berkeley, 
although  it  is  doubtful  whether  the  young  Northampton 
preacher,  isolated  by  poverty  and  the  difficulties  of 
Colonial  travel,  even  once  visited  the  distinguished 
English  philosopher  during  that  mysterious  residence 
of  three  years  at  Newport.  It  is  possible,  indeed,  so 


I  THE  COLONIAL  PERIOD  5 1 

thick  was  the  wall  of  provincialism,  that  Edwards  was 
ignorant  alike  of  Berkeley's  presence  in  New  England 
and  of  the  existence  of  Berkeley's  views  as  such.  But 
apart  from  the  special  tenets  of  the  schools,  in  that 
ascetic,  God- enraptured  life  of  Jonathan  Edwards  the 
essential  ideality  of  Puritanism  is  seen  at  its  clearest. 
Men  who,  dwelling  in  hazard  on  the  edge  of  the  prime 
val  forest,  could  absorb  themselves  in  hot  discussions 
over  the  validity  of  infant  baptism,  were  legitimate 
ancestors  not  only  of  Edwards,  but  of  Channing  and 
Emerson.  The  Transcendentalists,  beneath  dogma,  are 
at  one  with  the  Calvinists.  Earth,  to  the  vision  of  both, 
is  shadow  and  dream ;  spirit  alone  is  reality. 


52  AMERICAN   LITERATURE  CHAP. 


CHAPTER    II 

THE  REVOLUTIONARY  PERIOD 

Over  the  roofs  of  the  pioneers 
Gathers  the  moss  of  a  hundred  years; 
On  man  and  his  works  has  passed  the  change 
Which  needs  must  be  in  a  century's  range. 
The  land  lies  open  and  warm  in  the  sun, 
Anvils  clamor  and  mill-wheels  run,  — 
Flocks  on  the  hillsides,  herds  on  the  plain, 
The  wilderness  gladdened  with  fruit  and  grain ! 
******** 

Everywhere  is  the  grasping  hand, 

And  eager  adding  of  land  to  land; 

And  earth,  which  seemed  to  the  fathers  meant 

But  as  a  pilgrim's  wayside  tent,  — 

A  nightly  shelter  to  fold  away 

When  the  Lord  should  call  at  the  break  of  day,  — 

Solid  and  steadfast  seems  to  be, 

And  Time  has  forgotten  Eternity ! 

But  fresh  and  green  from  the  rotting  roots 
Of  primal  forests  the  young  growth  shoots; 
From  the  death  of  the  old  the  new  proceeds, 
And  the  life  of  truth  from  the  rot  of  creeds : 
On  the  ladder  of  God,  which  upward  leads, 
The  steps  of  progress  are  human  needs. 

—  WHITTIER,  The  Preacher. 

I.  Aspect  of  the  Times.  —  As  the  theme  of  our  Colo 
nial  literature  is  theology,  so,  and  in  no  less  degree,  the 
theme  of  our  Revolutionary  literature  is  politics.  The 


II  THE  REVOLUTIONARY   PERIOD  53 

attention  of  the  colonists  was  turned  from  heaven  to 
earth.  The  change  had  been  gradual.  From  the  out 
set  there  was  in  New  England  a  democracy  of  common 
sense  and  common  virtues  disposed,  on  occasion,  to  check 
the  theocracy.  It  was  the  protest  of  the  plain  people  that 
put  an  end  to  the  flogging  of  Quakers  and  hanging  of 
witches.  Relinquishing  theology  more  and  more  to  the 
care  of  the  clergy,  the  laity  of  the  eighteenth  century  set 
actively  about  the  establishing  of  a  sound  material  basis 
for  the  new  American  civilization.  While  Cotton  Mather 
was  rapt  by  visions  of  winged  angels  in  his  study,  and 
Jonathan  Edwards  was  enfolded  in  a  "  calm,  sweet  ab 
straction  of  soul  from  all  the  concerns  of  the  world," 
sailors  of  Cape  Cod  were  throwing  the  harpoon  in  Arctic 
seas,  and  Newport  merchants,  who  would  have  been  none 
the  worse  for  more  religion,  were  importing  molasses  and 
sugar  from  the  West  Indies  to  make  the  rum  exchanged 
on  the  coast  of  Africa  for  negroes  that  were  sold  again 
in  Barbados. 

The  colonies,  which  by  the  middle  of  the  century 
numbered  thirteen,  fell  naturally  into  three  groups.  The 
aristocratic  Old  Dominion,  living  carelessly  off  her  to 
bacco  crop  and  cultivating  the  graces  and  dignities  of 
life,  had  the  Carolinas,  Maryland,  and  Georgia  for  neigh 
bors.  Maryland,  colonized  under  Roman  Catholic  au 
spices  and  originally  the  one  province  where  religious 
toleration  was  secured  by  law,  had  established  the  Epis 
copal  Church  and  disfranchised  her  Roman  Catholics. 
Her  schools  were  few  and  poor  and  her  higher  life  ap- 


54  AMERICAN   LITERATURE  CHAP. 

parently  stagnant.  With  the  English  settlers  of  the  Car- 
olinas  had  mingled  various  sturdy  Protestant  elements, 
notably  Scotch-Irish  Presbyterians  and  French  Hugue 
nots.  Into  North  Carolina,  Virginia  had  shaken  off  what 
she  could  of  her  vagabonds  and  ruffians,  so  that,  up  to 
the  time  of  the  Revolution,  this  colony  was  disorderly, 
lazy,  and  ignorant.  South  Carolina,  notwithstanding  her 
bad  name  for  smuggling  and  piracy,  fared  better.  Her 
planters,  enriched  by  their  rice  and  indigo,  corn  and 
cotton,  lived  gayly  in  Charleston,  while  troops  of  ne 
groes,  many  fresh  from  the  slave-ships,  worked  out  short 
and  sickly  lives  in  the  malarial  swamps.  The  youngest 
of  the  thirteen  colonies,  Georgia,  settled  in  1732  under 
the  leadership  of  the  humane  Oglethorpe,  was  founded 
for  the  express  purpose  of  giving  another  chance  in  life 
to  the  unfortunates  of  the  Old  World,  especially  the 
poor  debtors  of  the  London  jails.  The  Wesleys  and 
Whitefield  exhorted  there  but  for  a  season,  the  effort  to 
exclude  slavery  and  rum  proved  Utopian,  and  the  novel 
mission,  which  attracted,  to  balance  its  weaklings,  some 
excellent  constituents  in  Scots,  Germans,  and  English 
Quakers,  presently  slipped  off  the  philanthropic  apron- 
strings  and  began  to  make  its  own  mundane  way  in  agri 
culture,  cattle-raising,  and  commerce.  Although  brick 
kilns,  ship-yards,  iron  furnaces,  and  mills  of  various  sorts 
might  be  found,  for  the  seeking,  below  Mason  and  Dix- 
on's  line,  the  South  was,  broadly  speaking,  without 
manufactures.  Its  wealth  lay  in  its  natural  products. 
Similarly,  while  destitute  of  literature,  it  was  rich  in  the 


II  THE   REVOLUTIONARY   PERIOD  55 

raw  material  of  literature,  —  in  life.  Williamsburg  was 
the  focus  of  a  blithe  and  polished  society.  There  "  the 
violins  seemed  to  be  ever  playing."  There  the  planter's 
son,  a  superlative  dandy  in  powdered  peruke  and  gold- 
threaded  waistcoat,  doffed  his  cocked  hat  with  its  flaunt 
ing  feather  to  the  soft-voiced  Virginian  maidens  so 
languidly  that  it  would  have  taken  a  keen  eye  to  detect, 
beneath  furbelows  and  foppery,  the  steel  temper  of  the 
Revolution  close  at  hand.  Beside  the  strenuous  studies 
and  varied  business  activities  of  the  North,  the  southern 
oligarchy  looked  idle  and  frivolous,  yet  the  fox-hunting, 
horse-racing,  dancing,  and  duelling  went  to  the  making 
of  heroes. 

The  Middle  Colonies  comprised  New  York,  of  Dutch 
tradition,  New  Jersey,  with  population  variously  com 
pounded  of  Dutch,  Quakers,  and  Puritans,  Pennsylvania, 
where  the  welcome  of  the  Friends  was  broad  enough  for 
all  peoples  and  all  sects,  and  Delaware,  planted  by  the 
Swedes.  The  main  employment  of  the  Middle  Colonies 
was  the  production  of  food-stuffs,  especially  grain.  On 
the  large,  fertile  farms,  German  and  Irish  bond-servants, 
working  out  their  passage  dues,  indentured  convicts  from 
Great  Britain,  and  African  slaves  toiled  together,  under 
the  oversight  of  their  rustic  masters.  The  fur-trade  with 
the  Indians  was  extensive.  New  York  and  Philadelphia 
were  thriving  seaports.  Merchants  abounded  in  the 
towns,  and  throughout  the  country  districts  shop-keepers, 
peddlers,  and  mechanics  were  thickly  sprinkled  in  among 
the  tillers  of  the  soil.  Shipbuilding  flourished,  and  the 


56  AMERICAN   LITERATURE  CHAP. 

iron  industry  was  well  under  way.  Notwithstanding  the 
selfish  legislation  of  the  English  Parliament,  which  strove 
to  compel  the  colonists  to  bring  their  raw  material  to 
British  markets  in  barter  for  the  products  of  British  fac 
tories,  there  existed  in  the  Middle  Colonies,  as  in  New 
England,  a  few  manufactures  for  domestic  use,  while  the 
spinning-wheel  and  loom  were  busy  in  a  thousand  homes. 
This  work-a-day  life  had  not  the  social  charm  of  the 
South,  nor  the  intellectual  energy  of  the  East,  although 
there  was  fashion  in  the  towns,  and  education,  especially 
in  Pennsylvania  and  New  Jersey,  was  not  altogether  neg 
lected;  but  while  emphasis  was  put  on  the  practical  and 
the  utilitarian,  on  bread  alone,  the  polyglot  character  of 
the  population  and  the  Quaker  leaven  of  tolerance  fa 
vored  that  development  witnessed  to-day,  when  the  cos 
mopolitan  city  of  New  York  holds  rank  as  the  literary  no 
less  than  the  financial  metropolis  of  the  United  States. 

New  Hampshire,  Connecticut,  and  Rhode  Island, 
all  offshoots  from  Massachusetts,  bore  a  close  family 
resemblance  to  the  parent  colony.  "  Little  Rhody " 
was  the  bad  child  of  the  household,  restless,  greedy, 
and  unruly,  but  these  sorry  traits  she  gradually  out 
grew.  From  granite  hillside  and  stormy  sea  the  tough 
Puritans  wrested  their  first  prosperity,  but  soon  added 
to  their  fisheries  and  agriculture  a  very  canny  trade. 
This  circular  commerce  gathered  up  in  its  coasting 
craft  provisions,  furs,  and  lumber  from  the  neighboring 
colonies  and  carried  these  exports  to  Great  Britain, 
the  West  Indies,  and  such  few  continental  markets  as 


II  THE  REVOLUTIONARY   PERIOD  57 

Parliament's  jealous  Navigation  Acts  left  open.  The 
return  cargoes,  largely  English  fabrics  and  other  manu 
factured  wares,  were  bartered  again,  at  a  Yankee  profit, 
in  the  Colonial  ports.  If  every  New  England  merchant 
was  a  money-maker,  every  farmer  was  a  Jack  of  all 
trades,  as  much  at  home  in  cobbling  a  pair  of  shoes 
as  in  criticising  a  sermon.  Brother  Jonathan's  "  cute- 
ness  "  was  already  in  evidence.  A  cider-press  stood 
handy  to  his  apple-orchard.  His  live  stock  knew  the 
smell  of  his  tannery.  The  shyest  mountain-streams, 
with  the  wildest  Indian  names,  found  themselves  turn 
ing  the  wheels  of  his  saw-mill  and  grist-mill.  If  his 
sheep  sharpened  their  noses  picking  out  grassblades 
between  the  rocks,  his  homespun  suit  was  none  the 
worse  for  it.  A  dozen  factories  were  gathered  into 
his  farmhouse  kitchen,  where  thin-lipped  women  baked 
and  brewed,  washed  and  ironed,  canned  and  pickled, 
compounded  the  family  physic  of  "snail-water,"  with 
ruby  jellies  to  obliterate  its  taste,  spun,  wove,  knit, 
quilted,  made  candles,  soap,  sausages,  rag- carpets, 
feather-beds,  and  were  by  turns  seamstresses,  milliners, 
tailors,  with  frequent  calls  away  to  dairy,  poultry-yard, 
and  milking-stool.  For  the  young  men  and  maidens, 
after  the  "  chores  "  came  husking-bee  or  spelling-match, 
and  the  children  trudged  barefoot  in  summer,  and 
coasted  in  winter  to  the  rough  little  school-house  that 
was  never  quite  out  of  reach. 

Such,   in   birdseye   view,   were  the   thirteen  Colonial 
units,  which,  by  the   time  they  achieved  independence 


58  AMERICAN   LITERATURE  CHAP. 

and  union,  numbered  toward  three  millions  of  people, 
perhaps  one-fifth  speaking  languages  other  than  Eng 
lish,  mainly  Dutch,  French,  German,  Swedish,  and 
about  the  same  proportion  being  of  negro  blood. 
The  blacks,  for  industrial  rather  than  moral  reasons, 
were  chiefly  in  the  section  of  rice-swamp  and  cotton- 
field.  In  New  England  and  the  Middle  Colonies  the 
general  trend  of  life  was  democratic.  Labor  was  held 
more  honorable  than  idleness.  In  the  South  there  were 
sharp  distinctions  of  caste. 

II.  Benjamin  Franklin  is  typical  of  this  new  American 
era.  Only  three  years  younger  than  Jonathan  Edwards, 
Boston-born  and  Boston-bred,  the  Puritan  temper  had 
absolutely  no  hold  upon  him.  Out  of  all  the  priestly 
writing  of  the  times,  he  assimilated  only  Cotton 
Mather's  Essays  to  do  Good,  but  the  suggestion  of  that 
one  book  he  took  into  his  very  pith.  He  was  the 
Abou  ben  Adhem  of  his  times.  If  service  is  the 
test  of  love,  few  men  have  loved  their  fellows  better 
than  did  this  unsentimental,  unspiritual,  homely  old 
body,  America's  patron  saint  of  common-sense. 

Alone  among  the  great  Revolutionary  leaders,  Frank 
lin  was  of  humble  origin.  Little  he  minded  that.  "  A 
ploughman  on  his  legs  is  higher  than  a  gentleman  on  his 
knees,"  His  mother's  father  was  Peter  Folger  of  Nan- 
tucket,  whose  "  homespun  verse  ...  in  favor  of  liberty 
of  conscience"  the  grandson  approved  as  "written  with 
a  good  deal  of  decent  plainness  and  manly  freedom." 
This  was  a  handsome  concession  for  Franklin,  who 


OF   THB 

UNIVERSITY 


II  THE  REVOLUTIONARY   PERIOD  59 

in  general  considered  poetry  "  the  mere  waste-paper 
of  mankind."  His  father  was  of  North-England  yeo 
man  stock,  of  a  family  where  for  generations  the  eldest 
son  had  succeeded  to  the  anvil  with  less  interruption 
and  perhaps  no  less  pride  than  attended  the  royal 
succession  to  the  throne.  Tudors  and  Stuarts  came 
and  went,  while  the  Franklins  hammered  on. 

Franklin's  father,  a  soap-boiler  and  tallow-chandler, 
who,  after  the  day's  work  was  done,  would  play  psalm 
tunes  on  his  violin,  to  the  delectation  of  his  seventeen 
children,  wished  to  devote  Benjamin,  "as  the  tithe  of 
his  sons,"  to  the  ministry.  The  prudent  goodman 
changed  his  mind,  however,  on  considering  the  expense 
of  a  college  education  "and  the  mean  living  many  so 
educated  were  afterwards  able  to  obtain."  After  a 
scanty  two  years  of  schooling,  the  boy  was  taken  home 
to  help  in  moulding  candles,  —  an  occupation  for  which, 
notwithstanding  its  eminent  usefulness,  he  conceived  a 
strong  dislike.  Pilgrim's  Progress  and  Plutarch's  Lives 
were  his  consolation.  Observing  this  bookish  tendency, 
the  father,  apprehensive  lest  his  discontented  little 
chandler  should  run  away  to  sea,  had  him  bound,  at 
twelve,  apprentice  to  an  elder  son  James,  a  printer. 
In  this  craft  Franklin  soon  excelled,  and  his  love  of 
reading  grew  apace.  He  even  tried  his  hand  at  ballad- 
writing,  but  his  father's  hint  that  "  verse-makers  were 
generally  beggars "  promptly  put  an  end  to  that.  On 
his  father's  suggestion,  the  boy  undertook  learning  how 
to  write  good  prose.  An  odd  volume  of  the  Spectator 


6O  AMERICAN  LITERATURE  CHAP. 

was  his  academy.  He  succeeded  so  well  that  his  Silence 
Dogood  essays,  —  Addisonian  trifles  on  such  varied 
themes  as  Widows,  Boston  at  Night,  Poetry  in  New 
England,  Match-Making,  —  slipped  anonymously  under 
the  printing-house  door,  were  published  in  his  brother's 
newspaper,  the  New  England  Courant. 

The  first  printing-press  of  America  had  been  set  up 
at  Cambridge  under  Harvard  control,  in  1639.  During 
the  last  quarter  of  that  century,  presses  appeared,  one  by 
one,  at  Boston,  Philadelphia,  and  New  York.  In  the 
third  decade  of  the  century  following,  Annapolis,  Wil- 
liamsburg,  and  Charleston  successively  went  into  the 
printing  business,  and  by  1762,  when  a  press  was 
established  at  Savannah,  the  last  of  the  thirteen  colonies 
was  ready  to  print  its  own  books,  provided  it  had  any 
books  to  print.  Boston  and  Philadelphia,  however,  by 
aid  of  the  Franklins,  took  and  kept  the  lead. 

The  seventeenth  century  had  witnessed  a  solitary  at 
tempt  at  American  journalism.  In  1690  there  appeared 
at  Boston  the  first  and  last  and  only  number  of  Public 
Occurrences,  six  eleven-inch  columns,  whose  projectors 
designed  "  that  the  country  shall  be  furnished  once  a 
month  (or  if  any  glut  of  occurrences  happen,  oftener)  with 
an  account  of  such  considerable  things  as  have  arrived 
unto  our  notice."  This  ambitious  venture  was  forthwith 
suppressed  by  government.  The  more  fortunate  News- 
Letter,  a  weekly,  first  issued  at  Boston  in  1704,  was 
supplemented  after  fifteen  years  by  the  Boston  Gazette, 
printed  by  James  Franklin.  At  the  same  time,  Phila- 


II  THE   REVOLUTIONARY   PERIOD  6 1 

delphia  started  the  American  Weekly  Mercury  and,»  two 
years  later,  James  Franklin  began  to  publish  the  New  Eng 
land  Courant.  There  was  no  American  daily  until  1771, 
when,  at  Philadelphia,  the  Pennsylvania  Packet  led  the 
way.  By  this  time  New  England  had  about  a  dozen 
newspapers,  the  Middle  Colonies  an  equal  number,  and 
the  Southern  scarcely  less.  In  all  this  Colonial  develop 
ment  of  the  printing  and  publishing  industry,  the  influ 
ence  of  the  Franklins  was  supreme. 

Benjamin  transferred  his  labors  from  Boston  to  Phila 
delphia  because  of  the  bad  tempers  of  James,  whose 
rough  words  and  rougher  beatings  roused  in  his  junior, 
long  before  the  Revolution,  the  spirit  of  rebellion  against 
arbitrary  power.  Smarting  from  brotherly  blows,  the  ap 
prentice  ran  away  at  seventeen  to  the  city  of  Brotherly 
Love.  As  the  young  Yankee  walked  coolly  down  Chest 
nut  Street,  with  two  "great  puffy  rolls  "  under  his  arms, 
eating  a  third,  Philadelphia  little  realized  that  her  mighti 
est  citizen,  the  bread-man  of  the  era,  was  making  his 
debut.  It  was  characteristic,  also,  that  two  of  his  three 
rolls  the  budding  philanthropist  gave  away  to  a  hungry 
woman  and  child. 

Ten  years  sufficed  to  put  him  in  the  full  tide  of  his 
career.  He  had  pursued  his  trade  for  eighteen  months 
in  London,  where  an  early  bent  toward  free-thinking  was 
confirmed,  had  returned  to  Philadelphia,  opened  a  print 
ing-house,  bought  the  Pennsylvania  Gazette,  and  become 
the  foremost  publisher  in  the  colony.  He  was  now 
equipped  for  his  peculiar  mission  of  training  the  Ameri- 


62  AMERICAN   LITERATURE  CHAP. 

can  Character  to  a  mastery  of  practical  life.  An  apostle 
of  frugality,  industry,  and  temperate  living,  he  occupied 
two  secular  pulpits,  —  his  newspaper  and  his  almanac. 
Through  the  first  he  did  much  to  shape  the  popular  mind 
on  public  questions.  From  politics,  commerce,  finance 
and  political  economy  he  took  his  weekly  texts.  But  his 
Poor  Richard  penetrated  to  thousands  of  rustic  firesides 
the  country  over,  and  was  thumbed  ragged  by  households 
who  had,  perhaps,  no  other  reading,  save  the  Bible,  from 
one  January  to  the  next. 

Almanacs  were  the  main  reliance  of  our  pioneer  pub 
lishing  houses.  In  a  year  when  the  three  Philadelphia 
presses  issued  a  total  of  thirteen  books,  seven  were 
almanacs.  It  was  for  1733  that  Franklin  prepared  the 
first  of  his  long  series,  under  the  name,  for  a  ruse,  of  a 
noted  almanac-maker  in  England,  Richard  Saunders. 
This  little  pamphlet  contained,  in  addition  to  the  regu 
lar  calculations  and  weather  predictions,  a  sly  preface, 
giving  a  realistic  glimpse  of  Dame  Bridget,  and  such 
varied  spicing  as  "  Verses,  Jests  and  Sayings  .  .  .  Bache 
lor's  Folly,  Parson's  Wine  and  Baker's  Pudding,  Short 
Visits,  Kings  and  Bears,  New  Fashions,  Game  for  Kisses 
.  .  .  Signs  of  a  Tempest,  Death  a  Fisherman,  Conjugal 
Debate,  Men  and  Melons,  .  .  .  Breakfast  in  Bed."  But 
the  irresistible  feature  of  the  new  almanac  was  its  pep 
pering  of  maxims,  original  and  borrowed.  While  Poor 
Richard's  prefaces,  anecdotes,  and  even  his  verses  de 
lighted  the  public,  year  by  year,  for  a  quarter  of  a 
century,  his  proverbs  were  driven,  like  so  many  quaintly- 


II  THE  REVOLUTIONARY   PERIOD  63 

carven  pegs,  deep  into  the  American  mind.  They 
inculcated  prudence,  — "  Little  boats  should  keep  near 
shore,"  and  persistency,  — "  Little  strokes  fell  large 
oaks."  They  proclaimed  the  gospel  of  hard  work, — 
"God  helps  them  that  help  themselves,"  "Plough  deep 
while  sluggards  sleep,"  "  Handle  your  tools  without 
mittens ;  the  cat  in  gloves  catches  no  mice,"  "  Dili 
gence  is  the  mother  of  good  luck,"  "Laziness  travels 
so  slowly  that  poverty  soon  overtakes  him."  Such  sen 
tentious  brevity,  such  tricks  of  rhyme,  antithesis,  and 
especially  of  word-picture,  using  the  concrete  image 
for  conveying  the  abstract  truth,  captured  attention  and 
memory  through  continual  surprises.  Even  the  dullest 
Dutch  farmer  might  have  wearied  of  the  two  words  : 
"  Practise  thrift,"  and  so  Franklin  draped  his  cardinal 
doctrine  in  all  manner  of  droll  disguises,  — "  Silks  and 
satins  put  out  the  kitchen  fire,"  "  A  small  leak  will  sink 
a  great  ship,"  "  Who  dainties  love  shall  beggars  prove," 
"  If  you  would  know  the  value  of  money,  go  and  try  to 
borrow  some,  for  he  that  goes  a-borrowing  goes  a-sorrow- 
ing,"  "Light  purse,  heavy  heart,"  "Lying  rides  upon 
debt's  back,"  "  Tis  hard  for  an  empty  bag  to  stand  up 
right."  Sometimes,  but  rarely,  he  strikes  the  deeper 
life-note,  —  "The  doors  of  wisdom  are  never  shut," 
"When  you  taste  honey,  remember  gall."  Often  his 
words  are  sharpened  by  the  quiet  irony  still  so  innate 
in  Yankee  speech,  —  "  He  that  falls  in  love  with  himself 
will  know  no  rivals,"  "Many  foxes  grow  gray,  but  few 
grow  good,"  "There  are  no  ugly  loves,  nor  handsome 


64  AMERICAN   LITERATURE  CHAP. 

prisons."  In  general  Poor  Richard  preaches  only  a 
worldly-wise  philosophy,  —  "Deny  self  for  selfs  sake," 
"  Rob  not  God,  nor  the  poor,  lest  thou  ruin  thyself." 

Franklin's  almanacs,  selling  at  the  rate  of  ten  thousand 
a  year,  travelled  from  colony  to  colony  and  across  the 
ocean.  It  is  estimated  that  Poor  Richard,  the  preface 
to  the  1758  almanac,  gathering  up  the  best  of  the  pro 
verbs  in  a  final  discourse,  has  been  printed  at  least  four 
hundred  times.  French  editions  are  almost  as  numer 
ous  as  English.  The  homely  counsels  of  the  tallow- 
chandler's  son  have  been  rendered  into  well-nigh  every 
European  language.  But  "  a  good  example  is  the  best 
sermon,"  and  Franklin's  personality  is  more  instructive 
even  than  his  aphorisms. 

This  personality  is  revealed  with  candor  and  compla 
cency  in  his  delightful  Autobiography,  supplemented  by 
his  correspondence.  His  style  is  clear  as  crystal,  shot 
with  glancing  lights  of  humor,  yet  preserving  throughout 
the  tranquil  dignity  of  a  man  who,  writing  about  himself, 
thoroughly  respects  his  subject.  He  had  reason.  In 
him  we  have  our  first  illustrious  example  of  such  a  career 
as  it  is  America's  peculiar  pride  to  foster,  —  the  rise  from 
poverty,  obscurity,  and  ignorance  to  a  station  of  highest 
honor  and  influence  through  a  man's  sheer  power  of 
brain,  conscience,  heart,  and  will.  Thoughtful,  upright, 
kindly,  determined  from  the  first,  Franklin  disciplined 
himself,  educated  himself,  enriched  himself,  and  made 
himself  the  greatest  social  force  of  his  time.  "  He  that 
can  have  patience  can  have  what  he  will."  At  forty- two 


II  THE  REVOLUTIONARY  PERIOD  65 

Franklin  had  amassed  an  honorable  fortune  and  retired 
from  business  to  devote  himself  to  politics  and  scientific 
investigation. 

The  atmosphere  of  Pennsylvania  was  favorable  to 
science.  The  Quaker  colony  was  more  liberal  than 
Massachusetts.  From  the  figure  of  William  Penn,  stand 
ing  under  Treaty  Elm,  his  blue  silk  sash  about  his  waist 
and  a  crescent  of  wild  Indians  before  him,  radiated  a 
tradition  of  tolerance.  Bartram's  botanical  garden  on 
the  Schuylkill  was  famed  in  Europe.  The  medical 
profession,  well  advanced  in  the  Middle  Colonies,  was 
headed  by  Dr.  Rush  of  Philadelphia.  Rittenhouse  was 
known  for  his  scientific  studies  as  well  as  for  his  scientific 
instruments.  But  the  achievement  of  Franklin  out 
ranked  them  all.  Up  toward  the  thunder-clouds,  awful 
to  Puritan  thought,  he  cast  his  sacrilegious  kite  and 
caught  the  lightning,  which  our  own  day  harnesses  to 
street  cars  and  sets  to  illuminating  saloons. 

Franklin's  electrical  experiments,  that  made  him 
honored  across  the  sea,  a  doctor  of  Oxford  and  of 
St.  Andrews,  a  member  of  the  Royal  Society  of  England 
and  of  the  French  Academy,  were  interspersed  with 
practical  inventions.  While  the  people,  as  the  people 
will,  abused  and  glorified  him  by  fits,  Franklin  good- 
humoredly  cured  their  smoky  chimneys,  brought  them 
home  English  vegetables  and  French  vines  to  plant, 
devised  the  Franklin  stove,  for  which  he  would  take  out 
no  patent,  bettered  their  printing-presses,  ship-rigging, 
carriage  wheels,  windmills,  and  roofs.  To  these  last  he 


66  AMERICAN    LITERATURE  CHAP. 

affixed  the  protection  of  lightning  rods,  decried  not  a 
little  as  "  an  impious  attempt  to  control  the  artillery  of 
heaven."  He  lent  a  hand  to  all  good  works  from  hos 
pital  reform  to  drilling  a  Quaker  militia.  He  inaugurated 
far-reaching  intellectual  agencies,  —  the  public  library, 
the  magazine,  the  postal  service.  He  founded  the 
American  Philosophical  Society  and  the  University  of 
Pennsylvania.  He  initiated  in  Philadelphia  so  many 
conveniences  of  the  modern  city,  pavements,  street- 
crossings,  fire-companies,  police,  that  one  is  not  surprised 
to  find  it,  at  the  close  of  the  Revolutionary  War,  the 
metropolis  of  the  new  nation,  with  thirty-two  thousand 
inhabitants  and  over  four  thousand  homes. 

Franklin's  political  career  began  with  the  clerkship  of 
the  Pennsylvania  Assembly,  of  which  he  soon  became  a 
member.  As  early  as  1754,  he  proposed  a  plan  for  Colo 
nial  union  that  was  displeasing  to  the  colonies  as  con 
ceding  too  much  power  to  the  English  government,  and 
affronted  the  English  government  as  allowing  too  much 
independence  to  the  colonies.  Franklin  philosophically 
consoled  himself  for  his  failure  by  concluding,  from  the 
double  opposition,  that  the  scheme  must  have  been  a 
good  one.  Three  years  later  he  was  sent  to  England  as 
special  commissioner  for  Pennsylvania,  and  there,  in  the 
main,  he  stayed  until  1775,  doing  his  best  to  avert  the 
inevitable  crisis.  His  attitude  toward  the  idea  of  a  vio 
lent  separation  was  conservative,  although  he  bore  him 
self  with  unflinching  yet  easy  firmness  before  a  suspicious 
Parliament  and  a  hostile  king.  His  staunch  patriotism 


II  THE  REVOLUTIONARY   PERIOD  67 

was  worn  as  quietly  as  an  old  coat.  He  urged  conciliatory 
measures,  advising  Boston,  for  example,  to  pay  the  East 
India  Company  for  the  salted  tea.  The  author  of  Poor 
Richard,  indeed,  could  hardly  have  been  expected  to 
approve  such  a  waste  of  herb.  His  own  words  explain 
his  position  :  "  Long  did  I  endeavor,  with  unfeigned  and 
unwearied  zeal,  to  preserve  from  breaking  that  fine  and 
noble  china  vase,  the  British  empire ;  for  I  knew  that, 
once  broken,  the  separate  parts  could  not  ever  retain 
their  share  of  the  strength  or  value  that  existed  in  the 
whole,  and  that  a  perfect  re-union  could  scarce  ever  be 
hoped  for." 

But  when  the  crash  came,  Franklin  stood  shoulder  to 
shoulder  with  Samuel  Adams.  For  ten  years  following, 
the  genial  philosopher  rendered  the  national  cause  ines 
timable  services  in  France,  where  he  was  hugely  popular, 
and  where  his  well-seasoned  tact  and  sagacity  proved 
equal  to  every  diplomatic  strain.  His  political  promi 
nence  may  be  gathered  from  the  fact  that  he  was  the 
only  American  statesman  to  sign  all  four  of  the  crucial 
documents,  the  Declaration  of  Independence,  the  Treaty 
of  Alliance  with  France,  the  Treaty  of  Peace  with  Great 
Britain,  and  the  Constitution  of  the  United  States.  To 
the  end  he  kept  in  advance  of  the  times,  death  finding 
the  old  man  busy  with  measures  for  the  abolition  of 
slavery. 

Long  residence  in  England,  and  especially  in  France, 
emphasized  a  native  breadth  of  mind.  "  Orthodoxy  is 
my  doxy,  and  heterodoxy  is  your  doxy."  But  while  he 


68  AMERICAN  LITERATURE  CHAP. 

held  with  the  prevailing  philosophy  of  the  eighteenth 
century,  that  happiness  is  the  human  end  and  aim, 
Franklin's  Puritan  birthmark  shows  in  his  view  that  such 
"felicity  of  life"  is  to  be  attained  through  "truth,  sin 
cerity,  and  integrity  in  dealings  between  man  and  man." 
Moulded  from  honest  red  clay,  without  wings  of  passion 
and  poetry,  his  thoughts  rising  heavenward  only  the 
length  of  his  kite  string,  Franklin  yet  repented,  in  mellow 
age,  all  unholy  (and  expensive)  dissipations  of  his  youth, 
and  added  a  limited  measure  of  faith  to  his  overflowing 
measure  of  works  :  "  Here  is  my  creed  :  I  believe  in 
one  God,  the  Creator  of  the  universe ;  that  He  governs 
it  by  His  providence ;  that  He  ought  to  be  worshipped ; 
that  the  most  acceptable  service  we  render  to  Him  is 
doing  good  to  His  other  children ;  that  the  soul  of  man 
is  immortal,  and  will  be  treated  with  justice  in  another 
life  respecting  its  conduct  in  this." 

In  Jonathan  Edwards  and  Benjamin  Franklin,  the 
two  world-redeeming  forces  of  spiritual  aspiration  and 
practical  benevolence  come  into  the  sharpest  contrast 
that  our  literature  affords. 

III.  The  Orators.  — Although  the  initial  wave  of  reli 
gious  enthusiasm,  which  would  have  founded  on  the  wild 
shores  of  America  a  very  kingdom  of  God,  seemed,  for 
the  hour,  lost  in  the  Revolutionary  surge  of  patriotic 
passion,  it  is  easy  to  recognize  the  same  essential  impulse 
in  the  two.  John  Wise,  the  fighting  parson  of  Ipswich, 
had  said  in  1710  :  "Englishmen  hate  an  arbitrary  power 
(politically  considered)  as  they  hate  the  devil."  And 


II  THE  REVOLUTIONARY   PERIOD  69 

when  the  colonies  slowly  awoke  to  the  conviction  that 
the  home  government  was  dealing  with  them  in  selfish 
and  tyrannic  wise,  the  Puritans  of  New  England  took 
the  lead  in  fiery  resistance.  Up  the  broad  stairways  of 
the  grand  Colonial  mansions,  stairways  beautiful  with 
carven  balusters  and  grooved  or  twisted  newels,  trod 
the  descendants  of  the  log-cabin  pioneers,  but  the  frown 
of  the  living  brows  proved  their  kinship  to  the  stern 
portraits  hung  above  the  landings.  The  Revolutionary 
dames,  who  dressed  their  hair  in  thirteen  curls,  wore 
calicoes  stamped  with  portraits  of  Washington  and 
Franklin,  and  drank  no  tea,  only  followed  where  the 
heroines  of  the  "  Mayflower  "  and  the  "Arbella"  had  led. 
Fittingly  did  Ethan  Allen  demand  the  surrender  of 
Ticonderoga  "In  the  name  of  the  great  Jehovah,  and 
the  Continental  Congress."  "  If  to  appear  for  my  coun 
try  is  treason,"  rang  out  the  words  of  young  JOSIAH 
QUINCY,  "  and  to  arm  for  her  defence  is  rebellion,  —  like 
my  fathers,  I  will  glory  in  the  name  of  rebel  and  traitor, 
as  they  did  in  that  of  puritan  and  enthusiast." 

This  ardent  patriot,  a  man  so  sound  of  judgment  and 
of  conscience  that,  amid  all  the  excitement  following  the 
Boston  Massacre,  he  consented,  with  John  Adams,  to 
undertake  the  defence  of  the  British  captain  and  sol 
diers  accused,  died  of  consumption,  on  shipboard,  just 
after  the  "  embattled  farmers  "  at  Concord  bridge 

"  fired  the  shot  heard  round  the  world." 
A  more  tragic  fate  than  this,  or  than  that  of  his  close 


7O  AMERICAN   LITERATURE  CHAP. 

friend  Warren,  who  fell  at  Bunker  Hill,  overwhelmed  an 
other  of  the  Massachusetts  orators,  JAMES  OTIS.  Fifteen 
years  before  the  Declaration  of  Independence,  his  im 
petuous  eloquence  protested  in  the  court-room  against 
the  revenue  search  warrants,  known  as  "  writs  of  assist 
ance,"  with  such  effect  as  to  arouse  in  his  hearers  a  last 
ing  determination  to  resist  laws  not  of  their  own  making 
nor  for  their  own  benefit.  The  following  year,  in  As 
sembly  debate  on  the  question  of  payment  exacted  by 
the  royal  authority,  Otis  flung  forth  such  fearless  words 
as  these  :  "  It  would  be  of  little  consequence  to  the 
people  whether  they  were  subject  to  George  or  Louis, 
the  king  of  Great  Britain  or  the  French  king,  if  both 
were  arbitrary,  as  both  would  be,  if  both  could  levy 
taxes  without  Parliament."  His  work  was  ended  in 
1769,  when  he  fell  victim  to  a  cowardly  assault  made 
upon  him  in  a  coffee-house  by  a  group  of  his  political 
enemies.  From  the  injured  brain  the  reason  slowly 
ebbed,  and  it  was  a  merciful  lightning-flash  that,  four 
teen  years  later,  struck  down  the  long-silenced  orator, 
who  had  once  been  likened  by  John  Adams  to  "  a 
flame  of  fire."  j 

With  the  fragmentary  and  uncertain  echoes  of  the 
speeches  of  Quincy  and  Otis  have  come  down  snatches 
of  patriotic  eloquence  from  that  "  chief  incendiary," 
SAMUEL  ADAMS,  a  politician  sage  and  incorruptible,  the 
earliest  and  most  persistent  advocate  of  Independence, 
the  dauntless  leader  of  the  Boston  democracy,  and  the 
only  man  excepted  from  the  amnesty  offered  to  the 


II  THE  REVOLUTIONARY   PERIOD  7 1 

colonists  by  England  in  1774.  But  the  palm  of  Revo 
lutionary  oratory  falls  to  the  South,  to  the  trumpeter  of 
the  rank  of  great  Virginians,  PATRICK  HENRY.  "Is  life 
so  dear,  or  peace  so  sweet,  as  to  be  purchased  at  the 
price  of  chains  and  slavery  !  Forbid  it,  Almighty  God  ! 
I  know  not  what  course  others  may  take,  but  as  for  me, 
give  me  liberty,  or  give  me  death." 

IV.  The  Statesmen.  —  "Great  men  come  in  clusters," 
and  at  the  hour  of  America's  need,  the  historic  arena 
seems  thronged  with  figures  of  heroic  proportions,  — 
orators,  generals,  statesmen,  embodying  the  garnered 
thought  and  passion  not  merely  of  their  own  land  and 
era,  but  of  liberty  itself. 

"  In  such  men 

Mankind  doth  live :  they  are  such  souls  as  these 
That  move  the  world." 

Yet,  just  as  these  stately  personages  of  a  bygone  cen 
tury  have  something  of  a  quaint,  theatrical  look  in  their 
gold-laced  hats  and  powdered  hair,  their  suits  of  sky- 
color  satin  and  peach-blossom  velvet,  so  their  magnifi 
cent  sentences,  even  the  sonorous  roll  of  the  opening 
periods  in  the  Declaration  of  Independence,  seem  florid 
and  grandiloquent  in  comparison  with  the  simpler  style 
in  favor  now.  But  criticism  is  hushed  before  that  ma 
jestic  company  marshalled  by  Washington. 

"  Virginia  gave  us  this  imperial  man 
Cast  in  the  massive  mould 
Of  those  high-statured  ages  old 
Which  into  grander  forms  our  mortal  metal  ran." 


72  AMERICAN   LITERATURE  CHAP. 

Washington's  correspondence  and  Farewell  Address 
would  scarcely,  from  another,  constitute  a  claim  to 
literary  renown.  That  age  of  statesmanship,  when 
men's  thoughts  were  centred  on  questions  of  govern 
ment,  of  the  political,  financial,  commercial  policy  to 
be  adopted  by  the  new  nation,  reared  for  itself  but 
one  literary  monument  of  impressive  proportions,  The 
Federalist.  This  is  a  collection  of  eighty-five  essays, 
skilful,  cogent,  convincing,  originally  printed,  usually 
in  the  Independent  Journal  of  New  York,  through  the 
fall  and  winter  of  1787-88,  over  the  common  signature 
of  Publius.  The  writers  were  ALEXANDER  HAMILTON,  the 
most  able  political  thinker  of  the  time,  whose  financial 
genius  originated  our  national  banking  system,  JAMES 
MADISON  of  Virginia,  who  drafted  the  Constitution,  and 
JOHN  JAY  of  New  York,  first  Chief- Justice  of  the  United 
States.  These  essays  constitute  a  continuous  argument 
in  favor  of  the  proposed  Constitution.  Two  questions 
were  chiefly  at  issue,  —  that  of  the  relative  power  to 
be  accorded  to  the  Federal  and  State  governments 
and  that  of  the  degree  to  which  the  popular  will  was 
to  be  expressed  in  the  control  of  national  policy. 
Hamilton,  the  head  of  the  Federalist  party,  was  of 
foreign  birth,  son  of  a  Scotch  merchant  resident  in 
the  West  Indies.  His  marriage  into  one  of  the  proud 
est  old  Dutch  families  of  New  York  had  confirmed  an 
aristocratic  bias.  He  counted  the  people,  in  his  own 
phrase,  "  a  great  beast."  In  his  view,  a  strong  central 
authority  was  essential  to  the  stability  of  the  nation. 


II  THE  REVOLUTIONARY   PERIOD  73 

Under  the  inefficient  Continental  Congress  and  the 
loose  Confederation  that  succeeded  it,  the  states  were 
virtually  independent.  The  Constitution,  with  its  plan 
for  a  Senate  representing  the  State  legislatures  and  a 
Lower  House  representing  the  whole  people,  proposed 
a  compromise  between  State  Rights  and  Federal  au 
thority,  —  a  compromise  which  has  stood  the  working 
test  of  one  hundred  years.  On  the  companion  ques 
tion,  as  to  how  far  the  will  of  the  sovereign  people 
should  be  limited  by  the  Upper  House  and  the  Presi 
dential  veto,  Hamilton  declared  for  a  system  of  checks 
and  balances.  Here,  as  in  the  matter  of  State  Rights, 
he  was  strenuously  opposed  by  THOMAS  JEFFERSON,  who 
came  in  1801  to  be  third  President,  succeeding  that 
vehement  Federalist,  (  JOHN  ADAMS  of  Boston. 

Jefferson,  like  Washington  and  Madison  and  the  bit- 
ter-tongued  anti-Federalist  orator,  John  Randolph  of 
Roanoke,  sprang  from  the  high-spirited  aristocracy  of 
Virginia.  After  two  years  of  William  and  Mary  College, 
he  entered  upon  the  study  of  the  law.  North  and  south, 
it  was  an  age  of  lawyers.  The  makers  of  the  nation  had 
good  training  for  their  task.  In  his  twenty-seventh  year 
Jefferson  entered  the  House  of  Burgesses  and  was  pres 
ently  in  the  front  of  the  patriotic  struggle.  The  Declara 
tion  of  Independence  was  mainly  of  his  authorship.  He 
was  governor  of  Virginia  when  it  was  invaded  by  the 
traitor,  Benedict  Arnold,  and,  later,  by  Cornwallis.  He 
succeeded  Franklin  as  minister  to  France,  where  he  was 
a  sympathetic  witness  of  the  first  pure  aspiration  for 


74  AMERICAN   LITERATURE  CHAP. 

"  Liberty,  Equality,  Fraternity."  Returning  to  America 
before  the  ideals  of  '89  were  dimmed  in  the  brutal 
tyranny  of  the  Reign  of  Terror,  he  became  the  fore 
most  American  champion  of  democracy.  Owner  of  sev 
eral  plantations  and  many  slaves,  he  had  nevertheless 
expressed,  even  before  his  residence  in  France,  his  hope 
for  "a  total  emancipation."  In  1776,  the  eminent  Vir 
ginians  in  general  deprecated  slavery,  although  cotton- 
growing  states  and  the  slave-importing  state  of  Rhode 
Island  were  so  sensitive  to  such  criticism  that  Jefferson's 
fervid  paragraph  arraigning  George  III.  for  promoting 
"  this  execrable  commerce  "  had  to  be  stricken  out  from 
the  Declaration  of  Independence. 

In  Washington's  cabinet,  where  Hamilton  sat  as  Secre 
tary  of  the  Treasury  and  Jefferson  as  Secretary  of  State, 
the  great  Federalist  and  the  great  Democrat  fought  out 
their  controversy  as  to  the  legitimate  powers  of  the  cen 
tral  government.  The  struggle  did  not  cease  when 
Jefferson  became  President,  nor  even  when,  in  1804, 
Hamilton's  brilliant  career  met  its  untimely  end  in  a 
duel  with  Aaron  Burr,  that  shifty  politician  whose  name 
stands  dark  against  the  saintly  memory  of  his  grand 
father,  Jonathan  Edwards.  The  Hamiltonian  principles 
essentially  prevailed.  The  loose  confederacy  of  states 
took  form  as  a  representative  republic.  The  doctrine  of 
State  Rights  has  since  made  its  appeal  to  arms  and  been 
finally  rejected,  but  Jefferson's  advocacy  of  the  "  rights 
of  man,"  of  the  ultimate  sovereignty  of  the  people,  has 
borne  fruit  in  the  steady  democratizing  of  our  social  and 
political  institutions. 


II  THE  REVOLUTIONARY   PERIOD  75 

Jefferson's  Autobiography  and  his  Notes  on  Virginia 
suggest  that  he  might  have  achieved  distinction  as  an 
author,  had  the  claims  of  active  life  been  less.  His  love 
of  letters  found  expression  in  his  establishment  of  the 
University  of  Virginia,  in  which  he  made  special  pro 
vision  for  English  studies.  He  had  the  literary  tempera 
ment  and  wielded  the  most  facile  pen  of  any  statesman 
of  his  generation,  although  his  personal  friend  and  politi 
cal  opponent,  John  Adams,  stood  not  far  behind  him  in 
constant  ease  and  occasional  power  of  style. 

V.  Poetical  Experiments.  — The  Revolutionary  period 
had  too  much  stirring  business  on  hand  to  cultivate  the 
arts.  "  Literary  accomplishments,"  wrote  young  Joel 
Barlow  to  his  classmate,  Noah  Webster,  "will  not  be 
so  much  noticed  till  sometime  after  the  settlement  of 
peace,  and  the  people  become  more  refined.  More 
blustering  characters  must  bear  sway  at  present,  and  the 
hardy  veterans  must  retire  from  the  field  before  the 
philosopher  can  retire  to  the  closet." 

This  JOEL  BARLOW  was  a  leader  among  the  "  Hartford 
Wits,"  an  informal  club  of  wide-awake  young  Federalists, 
who  penned  satiric  verse  on  party  questions  and  formed 
the  one  literary  group  of  the  era.  Barlow's  career  ranges 
from  the  Continental  army,  where  he  served,  while  yet 
a  Yale  undergraduate,  as  soldier,  and,  later,  as  chap 
lain,  to  Napoleon's  retreat  from  Moscow.  Involved  in 
this  by  chance,  Barlow  perished  of  exhaustion.  Between 
these  violent  extremes  he  had  known  law,  journalism, 
and  the  diplomatic  service.  This  last  brought  about  a 


76  AMERICAN   LITERATURE  CHAP. 

residence  of  many  years  in  France,  and  a  consequent 
conversion  to  democracy.  A  quieter  lot  fell  to  TIMOTHY 
D WIGHT.  He,  too,  was  a  Yale  man,  who  forsook  his 
tutor's  desk  to  study  law,  and  dropped  his  law-books  to 
serve  as  chaplain  in  the  army.  A  grandson  of  Jonathan 
Edwards,  his  later  life  was  appropriately  divided  between 
a  pastorate  at  Greenfield  in  Connecticut  and  the  Presi 
dency  of  Yale  College.  D  wight  had  been  graduated 
from  Yale  at  seventeen,  —  an  achievement  which  pales 
before  that  of  JOHN  TRUMBULL,  who  passed  the  entrance 
examinations  at  seven.  After  two  years  of  tutoring  at 
Yale,  Trumbull  studied  law  with  John  Adams,  and  be 
came,  in  time,  judge  of  the  superior  court.  These  three 
scholars,  ardent  patriots  all,  were  ambitious  to  endow 
their  young  Columbia, 

"  The  queen  of  the  world,  and  the  child  of  the  skies," 

with  an  equipment  of  epic  poems  which  should  put  her 
at  her  ease  beside  Greece  and  Rome,  England  and  Italy. 
Barlow,  by  the  poetic  building  of  a  quarter-century, 
reared  a  huge  Columbiad.  In  this  the  aged  discoverer 
of  the  western  hemisphere,  led  from  his  dungeon  by 
Hesper  to  a  mount  of  vision,  sweeps  the  continent  with 
his  gaze  and  beholds  the  changing  pageant  of  American 
story,  from  Cortez  to  Washington,  with  prophetic 
glimpses  of  an  all-glorious  future.  The  idea  was  bor 
rowed  from  Milton  and  the  verse  from  Pope ;  the  patri 
otism  was  original.  D  wight  chose  a  Biblical  subject, 
The  Conquest  of  Canaan,  but  even  among  the  wars  of 


OF  THK 


THE  REVOLUTIONARY   PERIOD 


Israel  he  made  shift  to  introduce  battles  and  personages 
of  the  Revolution.  This  was  dedicated,  as  were  many 
of  the  productions  of  the  day,  to  Washington,  who  had 
already  learned  to  acknowledge  such  presentation  vol 
umes  with  the  prompt  assurance  that  he  expected  to 
enjoy  them  greatly,  when  he  should  find  time  for  their 
perusal. 

It  may  be  said  of  these  two  lengthy  and  dreary  epics, 
as  Dwight  sang  of  his  countrymen, 

"  Refinement  of  the  heart 
Illumes  the  general  mass." 

Both  are  little  more  than  bad  copies  of  stilted  eigh 
teenth-century  English  models.  Dwight  frankly  de 
clares,  in  the  preface  to  a  rambling  poem  of  the  reflective 
order,  Greenfield  Hill,  dealing  with  the  scenes  about  his 
parish,  that  he  had  proposed  to  imitate  in  its  several 
books  the  respective  styles  of  as  many  selected  British 
bards.  We  catch  a  fresher  note  in  Barlow's  humorous 
Hasty-Pudding  : 

"  I  sing  the  sweets  I  know,  the  charms  I  feel, 
My  morning  incense  and  my  evening  meal  — 
******** 

Ev'n  in  thy  native  regions,  how  I  blush 

To  hear  the  Pennsylvanians  call  thee  Mush  !  " 

TrumbulPs  McFingal,  the  only  one  of  the  three  Hart 
ford  epics  still  enjoyable,  is  original  in  substance,  though 
imitative  in  form.  It  is,  in  fact,  modelled  so  closely  and 
so  cleverly  on  Butler's  Hudibras  that  couplets  of  the  one 


78  AMERICAN   LITERATURE  CHAP. 

might  easily  be  mistaken  as  belonging  to  the  other.  The 
hero,  in  the  American  satire,  is  not  a  Puritan  bent  on  the 
destruction  of  the  English  Maypoles,  but  a  Tory,  sally 
ing  out  with  fell  intent  to  cut  down  those  liberty  poles 
which  still  adorn  the  village  greens  of  New  England. 
Lively,  sensible,  and  keen,  the  poem  merited  its  popular 
ity.  More  than  thirty  pirated  editions  were  put  upon 
the  market.  In  The  Progress  of  Dulness  Trumbull 
turned  his  satire  against  American  education.  He 
essayed  the  ode  so  far  as  to  assure  his  two  epic  friends 
that  future  years  would  admire 

"  Barlow's  strong  flight,  and  Dwight's  Homeric  fire," 

and  he  wrote  elegies  largely  plagiarized  from  Gray. 

The  Elegy  in  a  Country  Churchyard,  indeed,  fur 
nished  not  only  verse,  tone,  and  situation,  but  actual 
phrases  to  more  than  one  funereal  effusion  of  the  time. 
Among  the  poems  of  that  phenomenal  negro  girl,  PHILLIS 
WHEATLEY,  a  petted  slave  in  a  Boston  family,  is  an  elegy 
on  Whitefield,  two  consecutive  stanzas  running  thus  : 

"  Cou'd  Virtue  charm  the  dull  cold  ear  of  Death, 

Or  pow'rs  capacious  stay  the  fatal  blow, 
Cou'd  innate  goodness  stop  the  fleeting  breath, 
WHITEFIELD,  thou  still  had  bless'd  a  world  below. 

Still  hadst  thou  shone,  to  guide  th'  aspiring  mind, 

To  bid  Religion's  streams  serenely  roll, 
Her  ample  heights  or  latent  tracts  to  find, 

And  swell  the  genial  current  of  the  soul." 

That  a  wild  little  black,  who  stood,  a  frail  child  of 


II  THE   REVOLUTIONARY   PERIOD  79 

seven,  in  the  Boston  slave-market  of  1761,  clad  in  a  rag 
of  old  carpeting,  with  a  dim  memory  in  her  frightened 
heart  of  a  far-away  pagan  mother  pouring  out  water  in 
worship  before  the  sun  at  his  rising,  should  have  been 
enabled,  by  a  dozen  years  of  Christian  nurture,  to  pro 
duce  this  volume  of  fluent,  pious,  decorous  verse,  pranked 
out  with  all  the  literary  elegancies  of  the  day,  is  still  a 
puzzle  and  an  astonishment.  Her  mind-stuff  must  have 
been  at  once  singularly  rich  and  singularly  plastic — mal 
leable  gold  of  the  Dark  Continent.  Her  subjection  to  an 
alien  civilization  is  pathetic.  The  rare  song-bird  of  Africa 
was  thoroughly  tamed  in  her  Boston  cage.  Very  meekly 
she  writes  :  "  On  the  Death  of  a  Young  Lady  of  five 
Years  of  Age,"  "Thoughts  on  the  Works  of  Providence," 
"  To  the  Rev.  Dr.  Thomas  Amory  on  reading  his  Sermons 
on  Daily  Devotion,  in  which  that  Duty  is  recommended 
and  assisted."  In  the  lines  "To  S.  M.,  a  young 
African  Painter,  on  seeing  his  Works,"  occurs  a  passage 
of  touching  suggestion : 

"  But  when  these  shades  of  time  are  chas'd  away 
And  darkness  ends  in  everlasting  day, 
On  what  seraphic  pinions  shall  we  move 
And  view  the  landscapes  in  the  realms  above ! 
There  shall  thy  tongue  in  heav'nly  murmurs  flow, 
And  there  my  muse  with  heav'nly  transport  glow." 

Mrs.  Mercy  Warren  of  Massachusetts,  a  dame  of  for 
midable  dignity,  sarcastic  on  occasion,  a  sister  of  James 
Otis,  and  the  author  of  the  first  history  of  the  American 
Revolution,  wrote  verse  substantially  correct,  with  here 


8O  AMERICAN  LITERATURE  CHAP. 

and  there  an  alert  or  graceful  turn.  As  much,  and  no 
more,  may  be  said  for  certain  New  York  celebrities, 
Mrs.  Charlotte  Lennox,  Mrs.  Ann  Eliza  Bleecker  and  her 
daughter,  as  well  as  various  unidentified  Ethelindas, 
Calistas,  and  Violas,  contributors  to  the  New  York  Maga 
zine.  The  society  rhymes  and  bacchanalian  catches  of 
the  masculine  lyrists  are  a  shade  less  wearisome,  but  the 
popular  balladry  of  the  Revolution,  rude  and  often 
uncouth  as  it  is,  possesses  a  vitality  that  these  more 
elegant  compositions  lack.  That  rollicking  piece  of 
doggerel,  Yankee  Doodle,  is  still  a  national  song,  and 
well-known  yet  are  a  few  of  the  ballads  commemorating 
crises  or  incidents  of  the  War.  The  battle  of  Trenton, 
Burgoyne's  defeat,  the  sea-fight  of  "Bold  Hathorne,"  the 
"  Battle  of  the  Kegs,"  the  execution  of  Nathan  Hale,  all 
found  homely  laureates,  while  the  glee  of  victory  fairly 
bubbles  over  in  The  Dance  : 

"  Cornwallis  led  a  country  dance, 
The  like  was  never  seen,  sir, 
Much  retrograde  and  much  advance, 
And  all  with  General  Green,  sir." 

Preceding  this  final  scene  of  the  war-drama,  the  Tories, 
vociferous  at  their  revels  in  New  York  City,  had  poured 
musical  contempt  on  the  patriots,  not  sparing  even  the 
august  commander-in-chief : 

"  'Twas  then  he  took  his  gloomy  way 

Astride  his  dapple  donkeys, 
And  travelled  well,  both  night  and  day, 
Until  he  reached  the  Yankees. 


II  THE  REVOLUTIONARY   PERIOD  8 1 

Full  many  a  child  went  into  camp, 
All  dressed  in  homespun  kersey, 

To  see  the  greatest  rebel  scamp 
That  ever  cross'd  o'er  Jersey." 

The  subject  of  this  saucy  lilt  was  hailed,  toward  the 
close  of  the  century,  by  the  versatile  Mrs.  Rowson,  as 
patron  of  the  American  arts, 

"  a  numerous  band 
Of  little  beings  starting  into  life," 

and,  truly,  Washington  seems  to  have  done  all  that  one 
man  could.  He  wrote  encouraging  letters  to  the  authors 
who  showered  him  with  odes.  The  note  of  this  Virginian 
planter  to  Phillis  Wheatley  is  a  model  of  kindly  and  re 
spectful  courtesy.  He  sat  for  his  portrait  to  Stuart,  who  in 
this  branch  of  painting  surpassed  even  Copley,  the  pride 
of  Boston.  Over  the  drama,  the  art  most  obnoxious  to 
both  Puritans  and  Quakers,  Washington  cast  a  fold  of  his 
prbtecting  mantle.  The  South  had  little  theatrical  preju 
dice  to  overcome.  As  early  as  1736,  The  Virginia  Gazette 
announced  an  amateur  performance  of  The  Beaux1  Stra 
tagem.  The  first  play  given  in  America  by  professional 
actors  on  a  public  stage  was  The  Merchant  of  Venice, 
presented  by  an  enterprising  English  troupe  at  Williams- 
burg  in  1752.  The  first  American  playhouse  was  built  at 
Annapolis,  in  the  same  year.  The  following  year  a 
theatre  was  established  in  New  York,  the  days  of  per 
formance  being  Mondays,  Wednesdays,  and  Fridays. 
Six  years  later  a  theatre  was  erected  in  Philadelphia, 


82  AMERICAN   LITERATURE  CHAP. 

although  the  drab-coated  Quakers,  whose  indifference  to 
art  had  driven  Matthew  Pratt  to  occasional  sign-painting 
for  his  bread  and  butter,  and  Benjamin  West  to  perma 
nent  residence  in  London,  where  in  time  he  succeeded 
Sir  Joshua  Reynolds  as  President  of  the  Royal  Academy, 
harassed  and  hindered  the  stage  until  nearly  the  close  of 
the  century.  It  was  not  till  1794  that,  after  memorials 
and  counter-memorials,  irruptions  of  sheriffs  and  ar 
rests  of  actors,  a  theatre  was  allowed  in  Boston.  Incipi 
ent  circuses,  drolls,  and  puppet-shows  all  had  a  share  in 
clearing  the  way  for  the  stage  in  New  England.  New 
port,  as  usual,  had  the  fewest  scruples,  although  a 
manager  resorted  to  the  ingenious  evasion  of  announcing 
there  a  performance  of  Othello  as  "  Moral  Dialogues,  in 
Five  Parts,  Depicting  the  evil  effects  of  jealousy  and 
other  bad  passions  and  Proving  that  happiness  can  only 
spring  from  the  pursuit  of  Virtue." 

American  theatres  once  secured,  the  advent  of  an 
American  drama  was  expected  as  a  matter  of  course. 
It  is  not  yet  in  sight.  Not  patriotism  alone,  as  America 
has  slowly  learned,  can  call  into  being  Iliads  and  Antig- 
ones.  To  outwit  Howe  and  Cornwallis  did  not  prove 
synonymous  with  outwitting  Shakespeare  and  Milton. 
The  first  play  of  known  American  authorship,  The  Prince 
of  Parthia,  a  ranting  tragedy  by  Thomas  Godfrey  of 
Philadelphia,  was  acted  in  1767.  Our  first  American 
comedy,  The  Contrast,  by  Royal  Tyler,  played  in  New 
York  twenty  years  later,  heralded  itself  with  a  flourish  of 
Revolutionary  trumpets : 


II  THE  REVOLUTIONARY  PERIOD  83 

"  Exult  each  patriot  heart !  —  this  night  is  shown 
A  piece  which  we  may  fairly  call  our  own." 

The  privilege  is  not  precious.  Dull,  trivial,  and  shape 
less,  the  play  is  noteworthy  only  as  providing  a  clumsy 
leader  in  the  long  procession  of  stage- Yankees.  Fired 
by  this  suggestion,  the  boards  began  forthwith  to  bristle 
with  the  Revolutionary  officer,  the  southern  planter,  the 
New  York  fop,  the  Dutch  farmer,  and  other  national 
types.  George  Washington,  America,  and  the  Goddess 
of  Liberty  figured  together  in  a  pantomime,  with  feathered 
Indians  and  chorusing  sailors  for  a  relish.  Plays  were 
written  on  Bunker  Hill,  Independence  of  America,  West 
Point  Preserved,  —  all  valueless. 

The  review  of  our  early  poetry  would  be  dishearten 
ing  indeed,  were  it  not  for  the  name  of  PHILIP  FRENEAU. 
Of  Huguenot  descent,  of  New  York  birth,  and  Princeton 
education,  he  entered  into  manhood  when  the  Revolu 
tionary  tide  was  at  full  height.  He  was  a  good  hater, 
and  soon  became  known  as  a  journalistic  writer  of 
violent  satires  in  verse  against  "  the  ruffian  Gage," 
the  " arch-butcher"  Cornwallis,  "  Old  Bute  and  North, 
twin  sons  of  hell,"  and  George,  the  "  Nero  of  our  times." 
He  detested  the  Tories,  especially  the  Tory  editors, 
even  more  than  the  Britons.  The  Puritans  of  New 
England,  too,  except  for  their  sea-faring  tastes,  were 
little  to  his  liking. 

"  These  exiles  were  form'd  in  a  whimsical  mould, 
And  were  aw'd  by  their  priests,  like  the  Hebrews  of  old; 


84  AMERICAN  LITERATURE  CHAP. 

Disclaim'd  all  pretences  to  jesting  and  laughter, 
And  sigh'd  their  lives  through,  to  be  happy  hereafter. 
On  a  crown  immaterial  their  hearts  were  intent, 
They  look'd  towards  Zion,  wherever  they  went, 
Did  all  things  in  hopes  of  a  future  reward, 
And  worry'd  mankind  —  for  the  sake  of  the  Lord." 

When  Freneau  was  not  editing  a  paper  or  scribbling 
his  lampoons,  he  was  at  sea.  In  1780,  the  vessel  in 
which  he  sailed  was  captured  by  an  English  frigate, 
and  he  tasted  the  grim  hospitalities  of  a  British  prison 
ship,  an  adventure  described  by  him  in  three  wrathful 
cantos.  His  praises  of  the  patriots,  especially  Paul 
Jones  and  Washington,  were  at  first  unstinted,  but  as 
suming  in  1791  the  editorship  of  the  National  Gazette, 
the  special  organ  of  the  Jeffersonian  party,  he  attacked 
Washington's  administration  so  sharply  that  the  serenest 
of  Presidents  was  moved  to  call  him  "  rascal." 

Captain  Freneau's  political  verse,  whether  satiric  or 
eulogistic,  has  vigor  and  a  certain  rough  originality, 
but  no  charm.  It  is  the  rare  lyric,  the  sudden  grace  of 
phrase  or  image  that  the  long-baffled  seeker  for  Ameri 
can  poetry  hails  as  birdnotes  in  March.  Here  and 
there,  the  French  blood  tells.  When  this  noisy  sailor 
softens  his  tones  to  sing  how 

"  At  Eutaw  Springs  the  valiant  died," 

Keltic  pathos  makes  itself  felt  even  through  the  formal 
ism  of  the  diction.  There  are  touches  of  "  natural 
magic"  in  his  stanzas  to  The  Wild  Honeysuckle  and 
Honey  JBee,  and  the  Keltic  turn  for  style,  no  less  than 


II  THE  REVOLUTIONARY  PERIOD  8$ 

the  new  poetic  vision  of  "  the  ancients  of  these  lands," 
imparts  a  lasting  attraction  to  his  revery  upon  The 
Indian  Burying  Ground. 

"  By  midnight  moons,  o'er  moistening  dews, 

In  habit  for  the  chase  arrayed, 
The  hunter  still  the  deer  pursues, 

The  hunter  and  the  deer  —  a  shade  !  " 

Campbell  paid  Freneau  the  silent  compliment  of  ap 
propriating  this  last  line  for  a  poem  of  his  own,  just 
as  Scott  made  free  in  Marmion  with  a  line  from  Eutaw 
Springs,  —  petty  pilferings  in  comparison  with  the  thefts 
committed  upon  English  bards  by  our  Revolutionary 
versifiers.  It  is  no  slight  proof  of  Freneau's  elevation 
above  his  rhyming  contemporaries  that,  in  relation 
to  English  poetry,  he  gave  instead  of  taking. 

VI.  Experiments  in  Novel  Writing.  —  It  is  not  easy 
to  regard  our  early  American  romances  seriously,  yet 
like  our  Revolutionary  oratory,  law-studies,  and  verse- 
forms,  they  reflected  contemporary  England.  The 
novel  of  domestic  life,  told  by  letters  and  conveying 
to  girlhood  the  warning  that  "  men  betray,"  was  feebly 
reproduced  in  America  by  several  women  of  literary 
proclivities.  A  refreshing  tartness  pervades  Mrs.  Tabitha 
Tenney's  Female  Quixotism  exhibited  in  the  Romantic 
Opinions  and  Extravagant  Adventures  of  Dorcasina 
Sheldon.  Mrs.  Hannah  Webster  Foster,  whose  husband 
was  a  minister  at  Brighton,  Massachusetts,  made  in  1797 
a  sentimental  sensation  with  The  Coquette,  or  the  History 


86  AMERICAN   LITERATURE  CHAP. 

of  Eliza  Wharton :  A  Novel  founded  on  Fact.  The 
stir  caused  by  the  story,  which  ran  through  many 
editions,  was  largely  due  to  the  identity  of  the  villain 
with  Pierrepont  Edwards,  a  son  of  the  revered  divine. 
The  opening  scenes,  laid  in  New  Haven,  furnish  inter 
esting  glimpses  of  Revolutionary  manners.  The  style 
is  fairly  illustrated  by  the  following  passage  :  "  He  spoke 
with  emphasis.  The  tear  of  sensibility  sparkled  in  his 
eye.  I  involuntarily  gave  him  my  hand,  which  he 
pressed  with  ardor  to  his  lips.  Then  rising,  he  walked 
to  the  window  to  conceal  his  emotion.  I  rang  the 
bell  and  ordered  tea,  during,  and  after  which  we  shared 
that  social  converse  which  is  the  true  zest  of  life  and 
which,  I  am  persuaded,  none  but  virtuous  minds  can 
participate.  General  Richman  and  lady  returned  with 
the  shades  of  the  evening." 

A  varied  career  was  that  of  Mrs.  Susannah  Haswell 
Rowson.  Her  father,  a  British  revenue  officer,  resi 
dent  at  Nantucket,  was  sent  out  of  America  as  a  Tory. 
The  daughter,  on  whom  pressed  heavy  burdens,  not 
lessened  by  an  unfortunate  marriage,  took  to  writing 
novels  after  the  manner  of  Richardson  and  sketches 
after  the  manner  of  Sterne.  Returning  to  the  United 
States  in  1793,  she  went  upon  the  stage,  playing  in 
Philadelphia  and  Boston  and  penning  opera,  farce,  epi 
logues,  what-not,  at  demand.  After  four  years  of  the 
atrical  career,  she  entered,  in  the  words  of  an  early 
biographer,  "  upon  one  of  the  most  delicate  and  respon 
sible,  we  might  add  one  of  the  most  exalted  and  worthy 


II  THE   REVOLUTIONARY   PERIOD  87 

undertakings,  to  which  a  female  can  aspire,  that  of  edu 
cating  the  young  of  her  own  sex."  Henceforth  she 
took  to  writing  text-books,  —  a  dictionary,  geography, 
"  Historical  Exercises,"  and  "  Biblical  Dialogues,"  to 
gether  with  odes  "On  the  Birth  of  Genius,"  "To  Sensi 
bility,"  and  eulogies  on  Washington  and  John  Adams, — 
ambitious,  uninspired  verses  with  the  eighteenth  century 
ear-mark.  Preceptress  of  the  Ladies'  Academy  at  New 
ton,  Massachusetts,  her  instructions  were  apparently  of  a 
tenor  that  her  literary  predecessor,  Mistress  Bradstreet, 
would  have  sanctioned. 

"  Know  you  not  that  woman's  proper  sphere 
Is  the  domestic  walk?     To  interfere 
With  politics,  divinity,  or  law, 
As  much  deserved  ridicule  would  draw 
On  woman,  as  the  learned,  grave  divine, 
Cooking  the  soup  on  which  he  means  to  dine, 
Or  formal  judge,  the  winders  at  his  knee, 
Preparing  silk  to  work  embroidery." 

Of  Mrs.  Rowson's  novels,  Charlotte  Temple,  bedewed 
by  "  the  tears  of  many  thousand  readers,"  is  best  remem 
bered  and  still  appears,  at  intervals,  in  new  editions. 
This  story  of  a  young  life  cruelly  wrecked  is  not  without 
a  moving  quality  for  minds  that  can  divest  themselves  of 
the  sense  of  humor. 

Royal  Tyler's  tale  of  piracy,  the  Algerine  Captive, 
smacks  of  Smollett,  but  the  English  influence  that  told 
most  strongly  upon  Revolutionary  fiction  was  that  of 
the  nightmare  school.  Aiming  at  wild,  romantic  effects, 
Mrs.  Radcliffe,  Walpole,  Beckford,  and  others  were, 


88  AMERICAN   LITERATURE  CHAP. 

just  before  the  day  of  Scott  and  Miss  Austen,  scaring 
their  readers  with  tales  of  ghastly  horror.  This  phase  of 
the  novel  was  expressed  in  America,  with  startling  though 
fitful  power,  by  CHARLES  BROCKDEN  BROWN,  our  first 
professional  man  of  letters. 

A  Quaker  by  birth  and  ancestry  and  certain  subtle 
currents  of  thought  and  feeling,  upon  Brown's  youth 
had  passed  the  sceptical  influences  that  flowed  from 
France.  Thomas  Paine,  whose  ringing  words  in  Com 
mon  Sense  and  The  Crisis  were  instrumental  in  rousing 
and  maintaining  the  Revolutionary  ardor,  baldly  expressed 
in  his  Age  of  Reason  the  deism  of  Voltaire.  To  the  grief 
of  the  godly,  French  unbelief  spread  fast  through  the 
land,  mingling  strangely,  in  many  young  minds,  with 
hereditary  religion.  So  Brown,  whose  ancestors  fled 
from  England  in  the  same  ship  with  William  Penn,  is 
ever  looking  for  visions  and  listening  for  voices,  but 
forces  himself  to  account  for  the  supernatural,  whenever 
it  appears  in  his  romances,  by  explanations  grounded,  no 
matter  how  absurdly,  on  natural  science.  Somnambu 
lism,  self- combustion,  and  ventriloquism  are  his  extreme 
resorts.  Of  temporary  madness  or  settled  insanity,  of 
dreams  and  presentiments,  he  avails  himself  freely. 

His  style  is  unequal,  —  touched  with  a  lofty  melancholy 
at  its  best,  and  at  its  worst  a  provincial  exaggeration 
of  the  sentimentalities  and  sensational  extravagances  of 
Clarissa  Harlowe  and  The  Castle  of  Otranto  combined. 
His  chosen  model  in  romance  was  Godwin's  Caleb 
Williams,  after  which  Brown's  Ormond  is  too  closely 


II  THE  REVOLUTIONARY   PERIOD  89 

fashioned.  Rarely  he  achieves  a  memorable  sentence, 
as  this  :  "  Perhaps^  if  my  pilgrimage  had  been  longer, 
I  might,  at  some  future  day,  have  lighted  upon  hope." 
His  plots  suffer  from  the  fact  that,  marked  for  early 
death  by  consumption  as  he  was,  he  wrote  with  feverish 
haste,  his  six  romances  being  produced  within  three  years. 
Arthur  Mervyn  is,  of  all  his  books,  the  most  wandering 
and  forgetful  in  narrative,  continually  throwing  out  false 
clews  and  leaving  behind  unsolved  mysteries,  leading 
with  elaborate  pains  up  to  situations  which  amount  to 
nothing.  With  something  of  Poe's  sombre  imagination, 
Brown  lacked  Poe's  fine  economy  of  literary  structure. 
The  strength  of  Arthur  Mervyn  is  in  its  episodes,  —  its 
vivid  pictures  of  Philadelphia  ravaged  by  the  yellow  fever, 
its  glimpses  of  the  debtors'  prison,  anticipating  Little 
Dorrit. 

As  a  literary  method,  Brown  affected,  in  the  beginning 
of  his  work,  the  Richardson  fashion  of  compounding  a 
story  from  the  letters  of  the  leading  characters ;  but  his 
own  peculiar  variety  of  this  monologue  system  is  recital, 
one  autobiography  being  set  within  another,  like  the 
Chinese  basket-puzzle.  The  whole  book  is  a  confiden 
tial  narration,  usually  made  in  unbearable  agony  by  a 
speaker  who  hardly  expects  to  live  to  the  end  of  his 
disclosure.  The  characters  figuring  in  the  original  story 
are  prone  to  offer  circumstantial  accounts  of  their  own 
blood-curdling  crimes  or  heart-crushing  misfortunes,  in 
troducing  into  these  histories  subordinate  personages 
with  the  same  thirst  for  self-revelation.  Brown  delights 


9O  AMERICAN   LITERATURE  CHAP. 

as  fully  as  Poe  in  monsters  of  wickedness  and  in  des 
perate  emotions.  "  Sullen  and  atrockms  passions  "  and 
"  features  bursting  with  horror  and  wonder "  meet  us 
every  few  pages.  His  heroes  are  Byronic,  possessed  of 
dark  fascinations,  and  subject  to  paroxysms  of  remorse. 
His  characteristic  heroine  is  a  trifle  indistinct.  "Per 
haps  the  turban  that  wreathed  her  head,  the  brilliant 
texture  and  inimitable  folds  of  her  drapery,  and  nymph- 
like  port,  more  than  the  essential  attributes  of  her  per 
son,  gave  splendor  to  the  celestial  vision."  These 
curious  puppets,  with  nothing  American  about  them, 
haunt,  as  in  Edgar  Huntly,  dim  Pennsylvanian  solitudes, 
where  even  the  panther  and  Indian  have  an  unearthly 
air.  Yet  Brown  can  convert,  as  in  Wieland,  the  familiar 
chamber  and  closet  into  a  scene  of  supernatural  dis 
may  :  — 

"  My  teeth  chattered,  and  a  wild  confusion  took  the 
place  of  my  momentary  calm.  .  .  .  What  horrid  appari 
tion  was  preparing  to  blast  my  sight  ?  Still  I  listened  and 
gazed.  Not  long,  for  the  shadow  moved ;  a  foot,  un 
shapely  and  huge,  was  thrust  forward ;  a  form  advanced 
from  its  concealment,  and  stalked  into  the  room.  It 
was  Carwin  !  While  I  had  breath,  I  shrieked.  While 
I  had  power  over  my  muscles,  I  motioned  with  my  hand 
that  he  should  vanish.  My  exertion  could  not  last  long : 
I  sank  into  a  fit." 

VII.  John  Woolman's  Journal  affords  an  exquisite  re 
lief  from  all  these  crude,  half-ludicrous  attempts  at  litera 
ture.  The  purity  of  the  gentle  Quaker's  soul  has,  as 


II  THE  REVOLUTIONARY   PERIOD  9 1 

Whittier,  his  loving  editor,  says,  entered  into  his  lan 
guage.  The  words  are  a  transparent  medium  of  spirit. 
Style  and  man  are  equally  unconscious  of  themselves. 
Without  art  Woolman  has  attained,  in  his  best  passages, 
that  beauty  of  simplicity,  that  absolute  candor  which  is 
the  goal  of  most  studious  art.  As  lucid  as  Franklin's 
Autobiography,  the  Journal  shines  with  a  pearly  lustre 
all  its  own.  Charles  Lamb  cherished  the  book.  "  Get 
the  writings  of  John  Woolman  by  heart,"  he  urged,  "  and 
love  the  early  Quakers." 

America  has  cause  to  love  them.  The  Friends  were 
rightly  named.  Their  spirit  was  simpler,  sweeter,  truer 
to  the  divine  prompting  than  the  spirit  of  the  Virginia 
manor-house  or  the  Boston  pulpit.  Penn's  "holy  ex 
periment"  was  a  blessing  to  the  land.  In  the  peaceful 
forest-city  of  Philadelphia  ripened  our  purest  American 
democracy, 

"For  soul  touched  soul;  the  spiritual  treasure -trove 
Made  all  men  equal;   none  could  rise  above 
Nor  sink  below  that  level  of  God's  love." 

Woolman's  statement  of  his  religious  creed  and  ex 
perience  is  given  with  his  wonted  simplicity.  He  had 
"learned  of  God"  that  "all  the  cravings  of  sense  must 
be  governed  by  a  Divine  principle.  In  times  of  sorrow 
and  abasement  these  instructions  were  sealed  upon  me, 
and  I  felt  the  power  of  Christ  prevail  over  selfish  de 
sires."  This  poor  New  Jersey  tailor,  unlearned  save  in 
the  Scriptures,  had  a  heart  overflowing  with  love.  He 
was  a  Francis  of  Assisi  in  his  tenderness  for  the  brute 


92  AMERICAN   LITERATURE  CHAP. 

creation.  In  him  the  antislavery  feeling  of  the  Pennsyl 
vania  and  New  Jersey  Friends  was  at  its  height,  and  his 
earnest,  pleading  remonstrances,  as  he  journeyed  on 
this  mission  through  Virginia  and  Carolina,  had  much 
to  do  with  winning  over  the  members  of  the  Society  in 
the  South.  From  Christian  principle  and  by  Christian 
methods,  the  Quakers  of  America  abandoned  slave- 
holding  more  than  a  half-century  before  the  Emancipa 
tion  Proclamation  was  put  forth. 

As  a  system,  Quakerism  has  defects.  The  arts,  for 
instance,  are  alien  to  it.  "  Their  rainbow  lights  are  lost 
in  its  soft  drab  shadow."  Its  practice  was  not  perfect. 
Like  Puritanism  in  New  England  and  Presbyterianism 
in  Scotland,  a  development  of  worldly  shrewdness  ran 
parallel  with  spirituality.  No  less  than  the  Yankees,  the 
Quakers  had  a  name  for  hard  bargains.  One  Ebenezer 
Cook,  perhaps  no  trusty  reporter,  tells  how  in  Maryland, 
early  in  the  eighteenth  century,  he  met  a  Quaker, 

"  A  pious  conscientious  rogue, 
As  e'er  wore  bonnet  or  a  brogue, 
Who  neither  swore  nor  kept  his  word, 
But  cheated  in  the  fear  of  God; 
And  when  his  debts  he  would  not  pay, 
By  light  within  he  ran  away." 

John  Woolman  was  not  of  that  variety.  His  Inner  Light 
shone  for  no  selfish  profit.  In  his  concern  for  the 
negroes,  he  did  not  forget  the  Indians,  but  made  diffi 
cult  and  dangerous  excursions  among  them,  preaching 
the  Gospel  as  the  Spirit  gave  him  utterance.  Mean- 


II  THE   REVOLUTIONARY  PERIOD  93 

while,  the  labor  question,  the  crucial  problem  of  to-day, 
had  begun,  even  so  early,  to  press  upon  his  heart.  He 
came  to  believe  that  luxurious  living  on  the  part  of  the 
few  involves  excessive  toil  for  the  many,  and  that  all  men 
should  therefore  fare  simply  that  none  need  be  heavy- 
laden,  —  a  doctrine  savoring  more  of  the  Sermon  on  the 
Mount  than  of  modern  economic  theory.  When  the 
inward  prompting  bade  him  cross  the  Atlantic,  he 
would  not  take  passage  in  the  ship-cabin,  adorned  as 
it  was  with  "  sundry  sorts  of  carved  work  and  imagery," 
a  part  of  that  forced  tribute  of  poverty  to  wealth,  but 
chose  to  lodge  among  the  sailors,  for  whose  spiritual 
welfare  he  soon  came  to  feel  "  tender  desires."  Once  in 
the  Old  World,  the  rushing,  grinding,  cruel  life  of  indus 
trial  England,  black  with  her  mines,  and  noisy  with  her 
factories,  smote  him  with  distress.  Hearing  that  it  was 
not  uncommon  for  horses  in  the  stage-coaches  to  be 
driven  to  death,  and  that  postboys  had  been  frozen  in 
their  seats  on  wintry  nights,  he  went  his  ways  on  foot, 
nor  had  he  "  freedom  to  send  letters  by  these  posts  in 
the  present  way  of  their  riding."  Wearied  out  by  the 
physical  exertion  of  his  long  travel,  and,  still  more,  by 
his  daily  anguish  of  pity,  he  sickened  at  York  and  died. 

Among  the  best-known  Puritan  diaries  is  one  by  the 
Indian  missionary,  David  Brainerd,  —  a  morbid  record 
of  spiritual  doubts  and  fears,  faint  hopes  and  strong 
despairs,  the  writer  sometimes  envying  "birds  and 
beasts  their  happiness,  because  they  were  not  exposed 
to  eternal  misery."  Dr.  Franklin,  on  the  other  hand, 


94  AMERICAN   LITERATURE  CHAP. 

had  found  this  world  so  agreeable  that  he  would  "  have 
no  objection  to  a  repetition  of  the  same  life  from  its 
beginning,  only  asking  the  advantages  authors  have  in  a 
second  edition  to  correct  some  faults  of  the  first."  But 
Woolman  wrote  his  Journal  neither  in  self-accusing  con 
sciousness  nor  self-complacent  retrospect.  "  I  have  often 
felt  a  motion  of  love  to  leave  some  hints  in  writing  of  my 
experience  of  the  goodness  of  God." 


in  NATIONAL  ERA:   GENERAL  ASPECTS  95 


CHAPTER    III 

NATIONAL  ERA  :    GENERAL  ASPECTS 

Centre  of  equal  daughters,  equal  sons, 

All,  all  alike  endear'd,  grown,  ungrown,  young  or  old, 

Strong,  ample,  fair,  enduring,  capable,  rich, 

Perennial  with  the  Earth,  with  Freedom,  Law  and  Love, 

A  grand,  sane,  towering,  seated  Mother, 

Chair'd  in  the  adamant  of  Time. 

—  WALT  WHITMAN,  America. 

I.  From  Washington  to  Jackson.  — The  first  six  Pres 
idents  of  the  United  States  were  men  of  social  stand 
ing  and,  Jefferson  excepted,  of  aristocratic  sympathies. 
Washington,  John  Adams,  Jefferson,  Madison,  Monroe, 
John  Quincy  Adams,  represented  the  best  birth  and 
breeding  of  Virginia  and  Massachusetts.  Washington's 
conservative  temper,  especially  as  manifested  in  his  proc 
lamation  of  neutrality,  when  in  1793  France,  declaring 
war  against  England,  looked  to  America  for  aid,  brought 
upon  him  a  storm  of  popular  abuse.  John  Adams  was 
accused  of  monarchical  tendencies.  Jefferson,  though 
in  theory  a  radical  democrat,  exerted  in  the  presiden 
tial  office  a  more  arbitrary  authority  than  Washington 
himself.  His  Embargo  Act,  holding  American  vessels 
in  port,  with  intent  to  protect  them  from  seizure  by 
the  warring  navies  of  England  and  Napoleon,  exasper- 


96  AMERICAN   LITERATURE  CHAP. 

ated  New  England  almost  to  the  point  of  secession. 
Bryant,  at  the  ripe  age  of  thirteen,  voiced  the  wrath  of 
the  Federalist  merchants,  who  saw  their  ships  rotting  at 
the  silent  wharves  :  — 

"  And  thou  the  scorn  of  every  patriot's  name, 
Thy  country's  ruin  and  thy  council's  shame ! 


Go,  wretch,  resign  the  Presidential  chair." 

The  Embargo  Act  served  only  to  postpone  the  inevi 
table  and  decisive  trial  of  strength  with  Great  Britain, 
whose  aggressions  were  incessant.  "Not  content  with 
seizing  upon  all  our  property  which  falls  within  her  ra 
pacious  grasp,"  cried  the  fiery  young  Kentuckian,  Henry 
Clay,  before  Congress,  "  the  personal  rights  of  our  coun 
trymen  —  rights  which  must  forever  be  sacred  —  are 
trampled  on  and  violated  through  the  impressment  of 
our  seamen.  .  .  .  What  are  we  to  gain  by  war?  has 
been  emphatically  asked.  In  reply  .  .  .  what  are  we 
not  to  lose  by  peace  ?  Commerce,  character,  a  nation's 
best  treasure,  honor." 

Under  Madison,  America  fought  her  "  Second  War  of 
Independence,"  the  War  of  1812.  After  this,  England 
kept  hands  off  and  respected  the  Stars  and  Stripes  even 
upon  the  high  seas,  accepting  the  situation  as  afterwards 
humorously  voiced  in  the  Biglow  Papers : 

"  We  own  the  Ocean,  tu,  John : 

You  inus'n'  take  it  hard, 
Ef  we  can't  think  with  you,  John, 
It's  jest  your  own  back-yard." 


ill  NATIONAL   ERA:   GENERAL  ASPECTS  97 

The  Monroe  Doctrine,  the  assertion  that  the  Amer 
ican  continents  were  no  longer  open  to  colonization  from 
Europe,  was  a  logical  consequence  of  this  success.  A 
new,  glad  sense  of  nationality  prevailed.  It  was  the 
"  Era  of  Good  Feeling."  The  population  had  increased 
to  over  twelve  millions,  about  one-sixth  being  negro 
slaves.  The  area,  vastly  widened  by  the  purchase  of 
Louisiana  from  France  and  of  Florida  from  Spain, 
covered  some  two  million  square  miles.  To  the  original 
thirteen  states  had  been  added  eleven  more,  —  Vermont, 
Kentucky,  Tennessee,  Ohio,  Louisiana,  Indiana,  Missis 
sippi,  Illinois,  Alabama,  Maine,  Missouri.  The  robust 
young  country,  ever  pushing  westward,  had  grown  impa 
tient  of  dictation  from  the  Atlantic  coast.  John  Quincy 
Adams  closed  the  line  of  cultured  Presidents.  Boston 
and  its  environs  no  longer  represented  the  expanding  life 
of  the  American  people.  "So  soon,"  says  Woodrow 
Wilson,  "as  the  Adams  fashion  of  man  became  more 
narrow,  intense,  aciduous,  intractable,  according  to  the 
tendencies  of  its  nature,  in  the  person  of  John  Quincy 
Adams,  it  lost  the  sympathy,  lost  even  the  tolerance  of 
the  country,  and  the  national  choice  took  its  reckless 
leap  from  a  Puritan  President  to  Andrew  Jackson,  a  man 
cast  in  the  rough  original  pattern  of  American  life  at  the 
heart  of  the  continent." 

Meanwhile  the  United  States  had  secured  not  political 
freedom  alone,  but  industrial  independence  of  Great  Brit 
ain.  The  cotton-spinning  machinery,  invented  and  ap 
plied  in  England  during  the  latter  half  of  the  eighteenth 


98  AMERICAN   LITERATURE  CHAP. 

century,  had  been  jealously  guarded,  especially  from  the 
revolted  colonies,  but  little  by  little  the  precious  secrets 
oozed  out.  Samuel  Slater,  with  a  view  to  bettering  his 
fortunes,  came  over  from  an  English  factory  with  spindles 
buzzing  in  his  brain.  British  law  forbade  the  exporting 
of  machines  or  models,  but  it  did  not  occur  to  the  British 
officials  to  search  a  man's  memory  for  smuggled  goods. 
Building  the  machinery  largely  with  his  own  hands,  this 
valuable  immigrant  had  by  1 790  a  cotton-mill  on  the  Ark- 
wright  system  in  operation  at  Pawtucket,  Rhode  Island. 
Others  promptly  followed,  in  South  Carolina,  Pennsylva 
nia,  and  elsewhere,  but  chiefly  along  the  many  water 
courses  of  New  England.  Eli  Whitney's  invention  of  the 
cotton-gin,  in  1 793,  gave  a  strong  impetus  not  only  to 
cotton-growing,  with  slave  labor,  in  the  South,  but  to  the 
textile  industry  in  the  North.  The  Embargo  Act  had 
forced  the  energy  and  capital  of  New  England  out  of 
commerce  into  manufacture.  Protective  tariffs  were 
soon  demanded  and  accorded.  By  1831,  the  third  year 
of  Jackson's  administration,  there  were  no  less  than  eight 
hundred  cotton  factories  in  the  country. 

Steam  had  but  begun  to  play  its  mighty  part  in  our 
material  progress.  Travel,  almost  to  the  close  of  this 
period,  continued  slow,  painful,  and  hazardous.  At  the 
opening  of  the  century,  rivers  were  crossed  by  perilous 
fords,  or  in  uncertain  ferry-boats,  or,  at  the  best,  on  float 
ing  bridges  roughly  constructed  of  logs  and  planks.  In 
Brown's  Clara  Howard  we  read  :  "  The  wind  and  rain, 
how  will  you  endure  them  in  your  crazy  vehicle,  thump- 


ill  NATIONAL   ERA:   GENERAL  ASPECTS  99 

ing  over  rocks  and  sinking  into  hollows  ?  .  .  .  And  this 
river,  —  to  cross  it  at  any  time  is  full  of  danger,  —  what 
must  it  be  at  night,  and  in  a  storm  ?  .  .  .  Well  know  I 
the  dangers  and  toils  of  a  midnight  journey,  in  a  stage 
coach,  in  America.  The  roads  are  knee-deep  in  mire, 
winding  through  crags  and  pits,  while  the  wheels  groan 
and  totter,  and  the  curtains  and  roof  admit  the  wet  at  a 
thousand  seams." 

In  1807,  Robert  Fulton  launched  on  the  Hudson  the 
first  steamboat  that  proved  of  practical  service.  In  a  few 
years  our  river-ways  were  all  alive  with  puffing  little  craft, 
often  run,  notoriously  on  the  Mississippi,  with  extreme 
recklessness.  It  was  not  until  1819  that  the  Atlantic  was 
first  crossed  by  a  steamship,  the  Savannah,  sailing  from 
New  York  under  a  Connecticut  captain.  In  1830,  the 
Baltimore  and  Ohio  railroad  had  fifteen  miles  open  for 
passenger  transport.  The  cars  were  drawn,  at  first  by 
horses,  but  within  twelve  months  a  locomotive,  built  in 
Pennsylvania,  was  put  upon  the  track. 

II.  Artistic  Promise  was  at  last  distinguishable.  The 
hunger  for  beauty,  for  mirth,  for  that  "whiter  bread 
than  is  made  from  wheat,"  had  begun  to  manifest  itself 
even  in  crudest  surroundings.  Snowbound  families 
played  checkers  with  red  and  yellow  grains  of  corn  on 
pine  tables  chalked  into  squares.  Dancing-schools 
were  opened  in  the  cities,  while  singing-schools 
made  centres  of  aesthetic  culture,  as  well  as  of  social 
excitement,  for  the  rural  districts.  Musical  taste  was 
gaining  ground.  The  pitch-pipe,  the  bass-viol,  and 


TOO  AMERICAN   LITERATURE  CHAP. 

finally  the  organ  had  won  their  slow  way  into  the 
churches,  where  they  cooperated  with  the  choirs,  long  a 
scandal  to  country  congregations,  in  hushing  the  echoes 
of  the  discordant  Puritan  psalmody.  At  the  opening  of 
the  century  the  "  fuguing-pieces  "  of  Billings,  the  Yankee 
tanner,  and  his  self-educated  school  were  already  fall 
ing  off  in  popular  favor.  These  riotous,  racing  tunes, 
ludicrously  unfit  for  devotional  purposes,  had  at  least 
broken  the  musical  monotony  and  roused  the  impulse 
to  criticism  and  composition.  They  were  certainly 
stirring.  "  Now  here  —  now  there,  now  here  again," 
exclaims  the  enthusiastic  Billings.  "  O,  ecstatic  !  Rush 
on,  you  sons  of  harmony!"  Our  pioneer  composers 
had  written  not  sacred  pieces  only,  but  when  the  Revo 
lutionary  spirit  was  abroad,  a  number  of  lively  marches. 
Such  special  battle-strains  were  hardly  needed,  for  the 
devout  old  Continentals  dashed  upon  the  Redcoats  most 
irresistibly  to  the  inspiration  of  fifes  that  shrilled  one  of 
their  favorite  psalm-tunes  : 

"  Let  tyrants  shake  their  iron  rod, 

And  slavery  clank  her  galling  chains, 
We'll  fear  them  not,  we'll  trust  in  God; 
New  England's  God  forever  reigns." 

The  reaction  against  the  fugue  finally  led,  patriotism 
notwithstanding,  to  the  study  of  English  music,  which 
opened  the  way  to  appreciation  of  the  German  masters. 
Dartmouth  College  established  a  Handel  Society.  Boston 
followed  with  the  famous  Handel  and  Haydn.  Concerts 


in  NATIONAL  ERA:  GENERAL  ASPECTS  101 

and  oratorios  became,  in  the  East,  a  feature  of  city  life. 
Pianos  appeared  in  a  few  wealthy  homes.  ^X. 

From  England,  even  while  abuse  and  bullets  were  in 
the  air,  came  a  continual  flow  of  influences  making  for 
the  higher  civilization.  Coleridge,  acquainting  Boston 
with  German  thought,  had  no  small  share  in  promoting 
the  liberal  theology  led  by  Channing.  Shakespeare, 
whose  works  were  edited  with  excellent  scholarship  and 
insight  by  Verplanck  of  the  Knickerbocker  group,  was 
expounded  by  Richard  Henry  Dana,  the  forgotten  Bos 
ton  poet,  in  a  course  of  popular  lectures.  The  develop 
ment  of  English  poetry  from  Chaucer  to  the  Lake 
School  formed  the  subject  of  a  series  of  articles  which 
Dana  published  in  his  solemn  quarterly,  founded  in  1815, 
the  North  American  Review.  Wordsworth  anointed 
the  eyes  of  Bryant,  Scott  fired  the  invention  of  Cooper, 
and  at  last  America  had  a  poet  and  a  novelist  beyond 
dispute.  Sydney  Smith's  question,  "Who  reads  an 
American  book?"  which  hit  us  harder  than  a  cannon- 
ball,  was  answered  by  Irving,  writing  in  the  style  of  Addi- 
son,  with  the  spirit  of  Goldsmith,  books  well  worth  the 
reading. 

Our  painters,  studying  in  London  as  well  as  in  Rome 
and  Florence,  reflected  in  art,  like  Bryant  and  Percival 
in  poetry,  the  new  enthusiasm  for  nature.  In  the  Colo 
nial  period,  when  the  output  of  the  press  was  almost 
exclusively  theological  and  the  main  concern  of  life  was 
the  soul's  salvation,  faces  were  more  significant  than 
aught  beside.  And  just  as  the  Colonial  artists  painted 


1-02  AMERICAN    LITERATURE  CHAP. 

portraits,  even  so  inevitably  did  the  Revolutionary 
painters  spend  their  colors  on  battle-scenes.  Colonel 
Trumbull's  Bunker  Hill  and  Surrender  of  Cornwallis 
are  examples  of  the  new  pictures  that  sprang  from  the 
new  subjects.  Naturally,  too,  the  school  of  American 
painting  that  appeared  early  in  the  nineteenth  century 
was  a  landscape  school.  Quickened  by  the  fresh  joy  of 
nationality  and  touched  by  the  romantic  spirit  of  the 
time,  men  looked  with  a  changed  regard  upon  American 
nature.  Tangled  forests  and  foaming  waters  that  had 
meant  superstitious  dread  to  the  forefathers,  peril  and 
hardship  to  the  pioneers,  suddenly  revealed  a  wealth  of 
beauty  to  the  delighted  gaze  of  the  artist.  The  "  Hud 
son  River  School,"  dominated  by  Cole,  whom  Turner 
pronounced  "as  much  of  a  poet  as  a  painter,"  was 
most  at  home  among  the  Catskills,  over  which  Irving 
had  thrown  a  bewitchment  of  Dutch  legend.  But  All- 
ston,  an  idealist  whose  brush  inclined  not  to  landscapes 
alone,  but  to  literary  and  Scriptural  subjects,  set  up  his 
easel  in  Boston,  where,  with  his  art  lectures,  his  occa 
sional  excursions  into  the  neighboring  field  of  letters, 
and  his  European  standards  of  taste,  he  furthered, 
with  Channing  and  Dana,  the  cause  of  general  culture. 

For  the  first  three  decades  of  the  century,  however, 
New  York  took  the  lead  in  literature  as  in  painting  and 
drama.  An  active  force  in  promoting  all  three  was 
William  Dunlap,  a  useful  though  careless  chronicler 
of  our  theatre  and  arts  of  design,  biographer  of  Brock- 
den  Brown,  and,  moreover,  a  dramatic  author  and  an 


Ill  NATIONAL  ERA:   GENERAL  ASPECTS  1 03 

artist  of  whom  it  was  curtly  said  :  "  There  are  two  things 
Dunlap  can't  do — he  can't  write  and  he  can't  paint." 
Over  threescore  plays,  original,  adapted,  or  translated, 
attest  his  devotion  to  the  stage.  John  Howard  Payne, 
too,  wrote  voluminously  for  oblivion.  Our  first  famous 
actor,  Edwin  Forrest,  who  made  the  reputation  of 
Payne's  Brutus,  is  responsible  for  the  flood  of  Indian 
melodramas  that  set  in  about  1830.  There  had  been 
occasional  attempts  to  introduce  Pocahontas,  King 
Philip,  and  other  picturesque  natives  behind  the  foot 
lights,  these  stage  Indians  belonging,  as  Mark  Twain 
said  of  Cooper's  tawny  braves,  to  "an  extinct  tribe 
which  never  existed,"  but  Forrest's  success  in  the 
title-role  of  Stone's  prize  drama,  Metamora,  brought 
out  warwhoop,  feathers,  and  tomahawk  in  all  their 
glory.  Through  the  first  half  of  the  century,  too, 
Revolutionary  plays  continued  in  favor.  Andre,  Eutaw 
Springs,  Lexington,  Siege  of  Boston,  Siege  of  Yorktown, 
Marion,  Washington  at  Valley  Forge,  appealed,  how 
ever  weakly,  to  the  sense  once  thrilled  in  London  play 
houses  by  the  historical  dramas  of  Shakespeare  and 
his  fellows. 

The  literature  of  the  time  was  characterized  by  fresh 
ness  and  exuberance  of  feeling.  After  the  long  winter 
of  Puritanism,  with  its  repressions  and  denials,  a  spring 
tide  of  sentiment  had  to  follow.  Not  yet  deepened  to 
the  passion  that  tore  the  very  heart  of  the  nation  in 
the  Civil  War,  not  yet  saddened  to  the  guarded,  ques 
tioning  temper  of  to-day,  this  early  enthusiasm  was 


104  AMERICAN   LITERATURE  CHAP. 

amusingly  naive.  A  contemporary  historian  of  litera 
ture  betrays  himself  to  the  smile  of  posterity  by  his 
pride  in  the  popular  annuals  —  "  periodicals  of  great 
taste  and  beauty  of  execution,  under  the  name  of 
Souvenirs,  Tokens,  Forgetmenots,  Talismans,  etc.  It  is 
delightful  to  look  over  these  fashionable  publications 
and  find  so  much  fine  writing  in  them.  A  gem  of  prose 
is  followed  by  a  floweret  of  poesy."  A  modern  critic, 
Gre enough  White,  who  has  faithfully  turned  the  pages 
of  these  faded  gift-books,  reports  them  as  "  made  up 
of  reveries  upon  Moonlight,  Wild  Flowers,  Tears,  The 

^^        '  * 

Twilight  Hour,  Memory,  The  Fall  of  the  Leaf,  sonnets 
To  Hannah  More,  or  On  the  Death  of  a  Child  or  To 
a  Beloved  Parent  on  her  Recovery  from  a  Dangerous 
Illness,  or  On  Burning  a  Packet  of  Letters  ;  and  tales  of 
wonder  or  terror,  The  Mysterious  Wedding,  The  Bandit 
of  the  Alps,  The  Strange  Mariner.  Children,  too,  must 
have  their  little  annual :  The  Rosette,  containing  The 
Neglected  Bird,  A  Dirge  for  a  Young  Girl,  The  Fad 
ing  Leaf  ,  The  Swan's  Melody;  or  good  Mrs.  Sigourney's 
Olive  Leaves,  with  its  Childhood's  Piety  and  The  Dying 
Sunday  School  Boy"  Mrs.  Sigourney,  rejoicing  in  the 
title  of  "  The  American  Mrs.  Hemans,"  was  a  prime 
favorite.  Those  precocious  girls,  the  Davidson  sisters, 
who  died  when  scarcely  out  of  childhood,  leaving  vol 
umes  of  fluent  and  monotonous  verse,  long  haunted, 
as  pathetic  wraiths,  the  little  American  Parnassus.  What 
Irving  was  pleased  to  designate  as  "  the  classic  pen  of 
Miss  Sedgwick  "  vied  in  favor  with  Cooper's  stronger 


Ill  NATIONAL  ERA:   GENERAL  ASPECTS  IO5 

quill.  Her  Redwood,  remembered  for  Debby  Lennox, 
its  Yankee  spinster,  was  reprinted  in  England  and 
translated  into  French.  Her  Hope  Leslie,  a  story  of 
the  early  Colonial  days,  ran  through  edition  after  edi 
tion,  and  The  Linwoods,  depicting  Revolutionary  times, 
accomplished  the  feat  of  wringing  copious  tears  from 
her  publisher,  one  of  the  Harper  brothers,  as  he  read 
the  proof-sheets.  Mrs.  Maria  Gowen  Brooks,  dubbed 
by  Southey  "Maria  del  Occidente,"  was  not  a  senti 
mentalist  of  the  common  order,  but  an  American  echo 
of  the  new  English  romanticism.  The  heroine  of 
Zophiel,  her  principal  poem,  is  a  meek  maiden  with 
shoulders  of  "milky  swell,"  "ivory  hands,"  "silvery 
feet,"  and  all  other  oriental  charms.  She  is  loved  by  a 
fallen  spirit,  a  jealous  demon  that  mysteriously  slays  every 
would-be  bridegroom  who  approaches  her,  until  the 
destined  husband  puts  him  forever  to  flight  by  a  potent 
talisman,  the  gift  of  the  benevolent  angel,  Raphael. 

Women  had  no  monopoly  of  milk-and-water  litera 
ture.  Richard  Henry  Wilde's  My  Life  is  like  the  Sum 
mer  Rose,  Samuel  Woodworth's  The  Old  Oaken  Bucket, 
George  P.  Morris's  O  Woodman,  spare  that  Tree  are 
songs  that  were  taken  at  once  to  the  popular  heart, 
together  with  Francis  Scott  Key's  Star-spangled  Banner, 
which  the  popular  voice  has  never  quite  learned  to 
sing.  Nathaniel  P.  Willis,  with  his  smooth  and  shallow 
versifications  of  Scripture,  his  animated,  amiable  letters, 
held  a  large  and  edified  audience.  Willis  was  one  of 
that  group  jauntily  known  as  the  Knickerbocker  School, 


IO6  AMERICAN   LITERATURE  CHAP. 

—  a  band  of  young  New  Yorkers  attempting,  with  the 
exception  of  Bryant,  nothing  very  earnest  nor  very 
wise,  but  working  on  human  materials  in  the  artistic 
spirit  for  the  artistic  end  of  pure  delight.  The  stormy 
Cooper  was  with  them,  but  hardly  of  them.  Irving, 
their  illustrious  leader,  Paulding,  the  friend  of  living's 
youth,  and  that  other  pair  of  young  and  loving  com 
rades,  the  poets  Halleck  and  Drake,  are,  with  Willis, 
the  natural  representatives  of  the  Knickerbocker  temper 
in  our  literature,  —  a  temper  light,  sweet,  and  spontane 
ous,  making  up  in  grace  and  gayety  what  it  lacks  in 
seriousness  and  strength. 

III.  From  Jackson  to  Lincoln. —  The  election  of  Jack 
son  inaugurated  a  new  era  in  American  politics.  With 
him  the  people  came  to  power.  Jefferson's  theoretical 
democracy  was  a  very  different  matter  from  the  practical 
democracy  now  introduced.  One  by  one,  the  Hamilton- 
ian  checks  on  the  popular  will  gave  way.  The  "  plain 
people  "  were  felt,  as  never  before,  in  the  conduct  of  the 
government.  The  good  was  mingled  with  evil.  The 
Spoils  System,  with  its  debasing  and  corrupting  influ 
ences,  dates  from  Jackson.  "  Swarms  of  office-hunting 
locusts,"  in  Greeley's  phrase,  settled  thick  about  the 
White  House.  It  was  a  tempestuous  administration,  but 
tough  "Old  Hickory"  carried  his  points,  good  and  bad, 
showing  himself  as  stubborn  in  maintaining  the  Union  as 
in  putting  down  the  National  Bank.  His  views  lacked 
idealism,  his  methods  lacked  dignity,  but  something 
fresh  and  sound  and  vigorous  in  the  pith  of  the  man 


By  the  permission  of  the  publishers, 
G.  P.   Putnam's  Sons,  New  York. 


Ill  NATIONAL  ERA:   GENERAL  ASPECTS 


delighted  the  people.  In  this  roughly  reared  soldier  of 
Tennessee,  the  pioneering,  work-a-day  millions  found 
themselves  represented  as  they  had  never  been  repre 
sented  before.  His  successor,  Van  Buren,  also  a  Demo 
crat,  upon  whose  administration  broke  the  financial  panic 
invoked  by  Jackson's  recklessness,  was  a  New  York 
politician,  but  the  popular  choice  speedily  inclined 
again  to  a  popular  leader.  "Tippecanoe  and  Tyler 
too  "  was  the  rallying-cry  of  a  memorable  Whig  cam 
paign,  which  took  the  form  of  a  glorification  of  that  rude 
life  of  the  Northwest  from  which  General  Harrison  had 
come.  Log-cabins  on  wheels  were  drawn  in  the  shout 
ing  processions,  coonskins  were  waved  for  banners,  the 
drinking  of  hard  cider  became  a  political  virtue.  Harri 
son's  victory  was  overwhelming,  and  his  untimely  death 
caused  grief  and  disappointment  the  country  through. 
The  Vice-President,  on  whom  the  national  burden  fell, 
was  a  Virginian  slave  -owner,  soon  at  loggerheads  with 
Harrison's  cabinet  and  with  the  northern  Whigs.  The 
party  was  so  broken  up  by  Tyler's  term  that  the  Demo 
crats  returned  to  power  in  1845  with  P°lk  of  Tennessee. 
During  his  administration  occurred  our  Mexican  War, 
scored  by  Grant  as  "  one  of  the  most  unjust  ever  waged 
by  a  stronger  against  a  weaker  nation."  General  Taylor's 
good  fighting  in  this  bad  cause  won  him  the  Presidency. 
Although  elected  by  the  Whigs,  this  Louisiana  sugar- 
planter  was  called  "massa"  by  a  hundred  negroes. 
Vice-President  Fillmore,  who  completed  Taylor's  term, 
had  been  born  in  a  log-cabin  on  the  New  York  frontier 


IO8  AMERICAN   LITERATURE  CHAP. 

and  had  made  his  own  irregular  way  to  the  Buffalo  bar, 
but  the  two  Presidents  succeeding,  Pierce  of  New  Hamp 
shire  and  Buchanan  of  Pennsylvania,  both  Democrats, 
could  boast  the  national  patent  of  nobility  inherent  in 
the  term  "  college  graduate."  All  these  Presidents  since 
Jackson  were  primarily  politicians,  nominees  of  "  the 
machine"  and  governing  in  the  interest  of  party;  but 
in  Abraham  Lincoln,  son  and  grandson  of  pioneers, 
bred  in  the  backwoods,  great  by  his  "  clear-grained 
human  worth,"  the  new  America  found,  at  last,  a  true 
exponent. 

"  Nature,  they  say,  doth  dote, 
And  cannot  make  a  man 
Save  on  some  worn-out  plan, 
Repeating  us  by  rote  : 

For  him  her  Old- World  moulds  aside  she  threw, 
And,  choosing  sweet  clay  from  the  breast 
Of  the  unexhausted  West, 
With  stuff  untainted  shaped  a  hero  new." 

This  westward  expansion  of  the  people,  this  subduing 
and  possessing  the  vast  stretch  of  savage  continent,  ap 
peals  to  the  imagination  like  a  triumphal  national  march. 
The  colonists  clung  to  the  eastern  seaboard,  but  with  the 
achievement  of  independence  began  the  tramp  of  the 
pioneers.  In  1785,  Freneau  had  written  : 

"  To  western  woods,  and  lonely  plains, 

Palemon  from  the  crowd  departs, 
Where  nature's  wildest  genius  reigns, 
To  tame  the  soil,  and  plant  the  arts  — 
WThat  wonders  there  shall  freedom  show, 
What  mighty  States  successive  grow !  " 


Ill  NATIONAL  ERA:  GENERAL  ASPECTS  IOQ 

This  irruption  into  the  wilderness  was  itself  an  epic 
poem.  Many  a  hunter  and  trapper,  many  a  far-trader 
and  wood-chopper  felt,  like  Daniel  Boone,  the  fascination 
of  the  solitude.  The  western  immigrant,  says  Will  Carle- 
ton,  "  went  to  see  the  world  as  the  Omnipotent  made  it 
and  the  deluge  left  it !  He  went  to  hear  the  tramp  of 
the  wild  congregations  —  the  horse  and  the  buffalo  — 
shaking  the  prairie  plains."  The  war-worn  Continentals, 
their  blue  and  buff  faded,  their  arrears  unpaid,  led  the 
way  to  "  the  poor  man's  country,"  and,  for  three  brave 
generations,  incessant  trains  of  pack-horses,  ox-carts,  and 
canvas-covered  emigrant  wagons,  the  "prairie  schooners" 
of  that  perilous  voyage,  toiled  after,  blazing  their  trail 
by  wrecks  and  skeletons.  Through  the  Cumberland  Gap 
to  Kentucky's  "Dark  and  Bloody  Ground,"  from  the 
Alleghanies  to  the  "  Father  of  Waters,"  beyond  his  fer 
tile  basin  to  the  mysterious  plains,  forward  at  last,  in  a 
fevered  rush,  across  the  grand  bar  of  the  Rockies  to  the 
gold-fields  of  California,  decade  after  decade  the  motley 
multitude  surged  on.  The  music  of  that  strange  advance 
was  the  perpetual  ring  of  the  settler's  axe,  crack  of  the 
hunter's  rifle,  and  all  too  frequent  cry  of  mortal  agony, 
as  the  maddened  Indian  tribes,  driven  back  and  back, 
scalped,  burned,  and  tortured  all  along  the  frontier.  But 
the  steady  wave  of  palefaces,  men  reared  in  hardihood, 
wise  in  all  manner  of  woodcraft,  wary  as  the  redskins 
themselves,  with  muscles  and  wills  of  iron,  could  neither 
be  turned  nor  stayed.  Women  hoed  the  corn  beside 
their  husbands.  Children  bore  their  part  in  thousands 


HO  AMERICAN   LITERATURE  CHAP. 

of  humble  tragedies.  The  grandfather  of  Lincoln  was 
shot  close  by  his  Kentucky  cabin,  and  only  the  prompt 
bullet  of  an  elder  son,  standing  in  the  doorway,  saved 
Lincoln's  father,  then  a  boy  of  six,  from  the  tomahawk 
already  swung  above  his  head.  But  camps  grew  into 
clearings.  Fields  of  wheat  waved  among  the  hewed  or 
blackened  stumps  of  ancient  forests.  In  lieu  of  those 
first  alert  figures,  picturesque  in  coonskin  cap,  fringed 
deerskin  shirt,  leggins  and  moccasins,  the  powder-horn 
over  the  shoulder  and  the  long  knife  in  the  belt,  the 
scene  was  filled  by  sturdy  shapes  of  homespun-suited 
farmers.  The  big  game  disappeared  with  the  hunter. 
The  bewildered  Indians  were  penned  within  government 
Reservations.  Rough-riding  cowboys  rounded  up  patri 
archal  herds  of  cattle.  The  little  log  school-house  and 
Presbyterian  meeting-house,  which  had  almost  kept  pace 
with  the  blockhouse,  stood  now  upon  its  ruins.  Back 
woods  settlements,  where  the  neighbors  had  made  merry 
with  fiddle  and  dance  at  a  corn-shucking,  a  house- 
raising,  or  a  sugaring  off,  sprang  into  populous  towns. 
The  winning  of  the  West  was  accomplished,  not  without 
full  price  of  sweat  and  blood. 

These  were  bustling  times  and,  after  a  fashion,  highly 
prosperous.  Our  material  progress  was  swift  as  a  dream. 
While  the  Indians,  peering  through  the  foliage  on  the 
edge  of  the  Great  Lakes,  believed  the  trail  of  fiery  cloud 
from  the  white  man's  big  canoe  the  breath  of  an  impris 
oned  spirit,  a  web  of  railroads  had  made  ready  a  fresh 
arena  for  still  greater  triumphs  of  steam.  The  iron  re- 


Ill  NATIONAL  ERA:   GENERAL  ASPECTS  III 

sources  of  the  country  were  now  worked  in  earnest. 
Canals  and  bridges  witnessed  to  feats  of  engineering. 
The  vast  Appalachian  coal-field  was  efficiently  opened 
to  mining  enterprise,  oil-wells  were  bored,  copper  de 
posits  unearthed,  and  the  precious  metals  of  the  Cordil 
leras  sought  in  a  delirium  of  greed.  Morse's  telegraph 
marvellously  facilitated  business  of  all  sorts.  Inventions 
and  discoveries  were  numerous,  especially  those  tending 
to  the  common  well-being.  The  sewing-machine,  the 
mower,  and  the  reaper  lightened  the  tasks  of  household 
and  of  farm;  ether  was  a  miracle  of  mercy  to  the 
hospitals. 

Europe  sent  us  her  poverty.  An  ever-thickening  host 
of  Scandinavians  streamed  into  the  Northwest,  taking  up 
the  public  lands.  A  sturdy,  thrifty,  Protestant  stock, 
good  farmers  and  good  citizens,  they  made  their  wel 
come.  Political  revolutions  and  industrial  distress  at 
home  secured  us  equally  valuable  immigrants  from  Ger 
many,  England,  and  other  Teutonic  countries.  For 
Celts  we  had  the  Irish  peasantry,  fleeing  in  hundreds  of 
thousands  from  the  Great  Famine,  and,  penniless  and 
exhausted,  remaining  where  they  were  landed,  in  the 
Atlantic  states.  The  cry  of  gold  startled  the  sleep  of 
Asia,  and  hordes  of  Chinese  choked  the  Pacific  ports. 
But  although  these  last  comers  were  ungraciously  ac 
cepted,  still  there  was  work  for  all  strong  hands,  and  it 
was  the  American  pride  that  no  able-bodied,  temperate 
man  need  go  hungry  here. 

The  all-absorbing  race  problem  of  the  period  had  to 


112  AMERICAN   LITERATURE  CHAP. 

do  with  the  negroes.  As  the  new  states  came  in,  the 
balance  of  free  states  and  slave  states  was  jealously  pre 
served.  By  a  gradual  plan  of  emancipation,  in  which 
Vermont  led  off  as  early  as  1777,  New  England  and  the 
Middle  States  were  practically  clear  of  the  evil  thing  by 
Jackson's  day.  The  Ordinance  of  1787  had  excluded 
slavery  from  the  Old  Northwest,  carved  in  time  into  the 
five  great  states  north  of  the  Ohio,  but  another  five,  Ken 
tucky,  Tennessee,  Alabama,  Mississippi,  and  Louisiana, 
had  been  admitted  as  slave  states  before  1820,  when, 
amid  heated  and  threatening  discussion,  the  Missouri 
Compromise  was  framed  by  Henry  Clay.  This  Com 
promise  admitted  Missouri  as  a  slave  state,  Maine  coming 
in  simultaneously  as  a  free  state,  but  it  also  established 
in  the  national  domain  a  dividing  line  above  which 
slavery  should  not  go.  Henceforth  the  North,  where  the 
Abolition  agitation  became  vehement,  and  the  South, 
angered  by  what  it  considered  attacks  upon  its  constitu 
tional  rights,  stood  as  hostile  sections,  their  intensifying 
antagonism  menacing  the  Union.  But  the  Missouri 
Compromise  had  postponed  the  crisis,  and  for  a  genera 
tion  more  the  balance  of  political  power  was  maintained. 
In  1836,  Arkansas  was  admitted  as  a  slave  state,  matched, 
the  following  year,  by  Michigan  as  a  free  state.  Florida 
and  Texas  entered  as  slave  states  in  1845,  offset  the  year 
after  by  Iowa  and  Wisconsin  as  free  states.  The  applica 
tion  of  California,  in  1849,  precipitated  in  the  Senate  a 
battle  of  the  Titans.  Again  Henry  Clay,  an  old  man 
now,  three  times  an  unsuccessful  candidate  for  the  Presi- 


Ill  NATIONAL  ERA:   GENERAL  ASPECTS  113 

dency,  offered  compromises.  Webster,  who,  like  the 
great  southern  Whig,  was  bent  on  preserving  the  Union 
at  all  costs,  gave  his  powerful  support.  Calhoun  of  South 
Carolina,  lifelong  champion  of  State  Rights,  came  to  the 
Senate,  a  dying  man,  to  speak  upon  this  bill.  It  passed, 
and  California  came  in,  according  to  her  own  desire,  as 
a  free  state.  Kansas,  where  the  experiment  was  tried  of 
settling  the  question  by  "  squatter  sovereignty,"  stormily 
rejected  slavery,  and  Minnesota  and  Oregon  successively 
joined  the  rank  of  free  states.  The  balance  of  power 
was  now  effectually  overthrown.  In  the  course  of  the 
Kansas  agitation,  an  antislavery  political  party  was 
formed,  known  as  Republicans,  and  on  the  election  of 
Lincoln,  the  Republican  candidate,  South  Carolina 
seceded  from  the  Union.  The  Gulf  States  promptly 
followed,  and  these  seven  had  organized  themselves  into 
a  Confederacy  before  Lincoln's  inauguration  in  March 
of  1 86 1.  Three  border  states,  North  Carolina,  Ten 
nessee,  and  Arkansas,  went  out  when  Lincoln  called  for 
troops.  Even  Virginia,  although  the  western  part  of  the 
Old  Dominion  broke  away  as  independent,  joined  the 
seceders.  The  storm-cloud  had  burst  at  last. 

IV.  Artistic  Progress.  —  Although  in  this  mid-cen 
tury  period  the  high-water  mark  of  American  literature 
was  reached,  the  word  has  been  far  from  proportionate 
to  the  deed.  The  poetry  of  action  has  tended  to  silence 
speech.  What  pen  could  keep  pace  with  that  westward 
onset,  with  rush  of  train  and  flash  of  telegraph,  with  our 
whirl  of  civil  strife?  The  War,  for  instance,  has  not 
i 


114  AMERICAN   LITERATURE  CHAP. 

found  its  Shakespeare  nor  its  Tolstoi.  The  records  it 
has  left  in  literature  are  as  yet  but  fragmentary.  It 
threw  out  a  spray  of  battle-songs,  —  My  Maryland ; 
Marching  Along ;  Battle-Hymn  of  the  Republic ;  Dixie; 
Wanted — A  Man;  Tramp,  Tramp,  Tramp;  Three 
Hundred  Thousand  More  ;  Marching  through  Georgia  ; 
The  Conquered  Banner ;  The  Battle- Cry  of  Freedom  ; 
Somebody's  Darling;  Driving  Home  the  Cows;  Ready; 
How  Are  You,  Sanitary ;  Roll- Call;  The  Blue  and  the 
Gray.  Whittier,  Quaker  though  he  was,  Longfellow, 
Aldrich,  even  Bryant,  paid  their  passing  tribute  of  verse. 
Holmes  pleaded  with  the  proud  Palmetto  State  on  her 
secession : 

"  O  Caroline,  Caroline,  child  of  the  sun, 
There  are  battles  with  fate  that  can  never  be  won ! 
The  star-flowering  banner  must  never  be  furled, 
For  its  blossoms  of  light  are  the  hope  of  the  world." 

Bret  Harte  sounded  The  Reveille.  Stedman  poured 
praise  on  old  John  Brown  and  on  gallant  Kearney, 
whose  dirge  was  tenderly  voiced  by  Boker.  This  poet, 
too,  honored  The  Black  Regiment.  Brownell  celebrated 
naval  fights  on  river  and  bay,  Read  echoed  the  hoof- 
beats  of  Sheridan's  Ride,  and  Lathrop  commemorated 
Keenan's  sacrificial  charge 

"  That  saved  the  army  at  Chancellorsville." 

Manassas,  Fredericksburg,  Gettysburg,  written  clear  in 
blood,  were  traced  again  in  ink.  Winthrop  had  his 
elegy,  and  Lyon.  Stonewall  Jackson  had  many.  Whit- 


Ill  NATIONAL  ERA:   GENERAL  ASPECTS  115 

man's  one  popular  lyric  is  his  sob  for  Lincoln,  My 
Captain.  Lowell's  two  series  of  Biglow  Papers  form 
a  unique  commentary  on  the  Mexican  War  and  the 
War  of  Secession.  War  stories  have  abounded,  from 
Miss  Alcott's  tearful-smiling  Hospital  Sketches  to  Crane's 
chromatic  Red  Badge  of  Courage,  but  for  all  these, 
and  more,  the  utterance  is  so  inadequate  that  our 
great  national  conflict  still  remains,  in  its  tragic  scope, 
"  unchronicled,  unsung." 

It  is  obviously  vain  to  look,  before  the  sixties,  toward 
the  West  for  literature.  Her  brown  and  stalwart  hands 
were  busy  with  heavier  tools  than  the  pen.  The  Muses 
might  well  acquiesce  and  wait. 

« 'Tis  fit  the  forest  fall, 
The  steep  be  graded, 
The  mountain  tunnelled, 
The  sand  shaded, 
The  orchard  planted, 
The  globe  tilled, 
The  prairie  granted, 
The  steamer  built." 

The  West,  throbbing  with  humanity,  was  hard  at  work 
making  the  new  America.  Little  time  was  there  for 
reading  books,  much  less  for  writing  them. 

The  silence  of  the  South  is  more  puzzling.  With  a 
leisure  class,  many  of  whose  representatives  were  widely 
travelled  in  foreign  lands,  American  gentlemen  distin 
guished  for  culture  of  manners,  and  of  a  peculiarly  lofty 
and  romantic  temper,  the  South  might  naturally  have 
been  expected  to  take  the  lead  in  the  national  arts.  For 


Il6  AMERICAN   LITERATURE  CHAP. 

her  dumb  Colonial  days,  the  isolation  caused  by  settling 
on  wide  plantations,  instead  of  in  communities,  has  been 
held  accountable.  These  living  conditions,  in  large  de 
gree,  persisted  till  the  Civil  War.  With  few  cities,  the 
stimulus  that  comes  from  mental  contact  and  friction 
was  wanting.  "Tobacco  and  cotton,"  says  Professor 
Trent,  "  have  choked  the  minds  as  well  as  the  acres  of 
our  people."  The  Revolutionary  epoch  seemed  to  in 
dicate  that  the  best  intellect  of  the  South  instinctively 
addressed  itself  to  questions  of  the  public  polity,  —  an 
indication  confirmed  by  the  senatorial  debates  for  the 
generation  preceding  secession.  As  the  law  had  been 
the  chosen  profession,  and  statesmanship  the  chief  con 
cern  of  Jefferson,  Marshall,  Randolph,  and  Henry,  so  it 
was  with  Clay,  Calhoun,  and  Robert  Y.  Hayne.  But  the 
problem  is  solved  only  in  part.  Why  was  the  literature 
actually  produced  so  ineffective  ?  Aside  from  the  glancing 
glory  of  Poe,  the  leading  names,  as  Simms  and  Kennedy 
and  John  Esten  Cooke,  stand  for  pleasant,  old-fashioned, 
rather  dull  romances,  after  (and  far  after)  Walter  Scott. 
If  the  writing  of  the  men  was  pale,  that  of  the  women, 
as  represented  by  Mrs.  Southworth,  Mrs.  Hentz,  and 
Miss  Evans,  was  flushed  with  unreal  tints.  The  lyrists, 
Wilde,  the  Pinkneys,  Philip  Pendleton  Cooke,  sounded 
but  a  faint  echo  of  the  old  cavalier  note.  Such  literary 
expression  as  there  was  had  inevitable  grace,  but  not 
the  convincing  force  of  frankness.  In  slavery  days,  the 
southern  writer  could  not  and  would  not  see  the  life 
about  him  as  it  was.  Far  less  would  he  or  could  he 


ill  NATIONAL  ERA:  GENERAL  ASPECTS  117 

publish  what  he  saw.  "  The  standard  of  literary  work," 
admits  Thomas  Nelson  Page,  "  was  not  a  purely  literary 
standard,  but  one  based  on  public  opinion,  which,  in  its 
turn,  was  founded  on  the  general  consensus  that  the 
existing  institution  was  not  to  be  impugned,  directly  or 
indirectly,  on  any  ground,  or  by  any  means  whatsoever." 
Southern  slavery  was,  on  the  other  hand,  a  potent 
cause  of  the  literary  activity  in  the  North.  Ten  years 
after  the  Missouri  Compromise,  William  Lloyd  Garrison, 
a  Massachusetts  printer  of  whom  Lowell  wrote,  "  Pos 
terity  will  forget  his  hard  words,  and  remember  his  hard 
work,"  established  the  Abolitionist  Society.  Its  organ 
was  Garrison's  weekly  paper,  The  Liberator,  whose  motto 
ran  No  Union  with  Slaveholders,  and  whose  purpose  was 
to  maintain  the  proposition  that  slaveholding,  apart  from 
all  political  considerations,  was  morally  a  crime,  and 
should,  as  such,  be  put  down  with  the  strong  hand. 
What  seemed,  not  unnaturally,  to  Calhoun  "  the  blind 
and  criminal  zeal  of  the  Abolitionists,"  was  a  character 
istic  outbreak  of  the  mighty  moral  passion  of  New  Eng 
land.  A  Knickerbocker  literature,  essentially  artistic  and 
entertaining,  was  not  for  her.  When  her  great  hour  of 
utterance  came,  it  was  the  old  Puritan  flood  of  ideal 
ism  broken  loose  again.  The  liberalization  of  theology 
through  Channing  and  Parker,  the  European  influences 
brought  to  bear  upon  American  thought  and  taste  by 
Allston  and  Dana,  Everett  and  Ticknor,  Longfellow  and 
Lowell,  resulted  in  that  New  England  renascence  whose 
supreme  achievements  were  the  Transcendental  essays 


Il8  AMERICAN  LITERATURE  CHAP. 

and  poems  of  Emerson,  and  the  mystical  romances  of 
Hawthorne.  But  the  core  of  the  movement  was  ethical, 
and  the  most  definite  object  proposed  to  that  eager 
moral  enthusiasm  was  the  blotting  out  of  slavery.  To 
this  end  Wendell  Phillips  lectured  and  Charles  Sumner 
debated,  Whittier  struck  out  burning  poems,  and  Harriet 
Beecher  Stowe,  in  the  access  of  indignation  roused  by 
the  Fugitive  Slave  Law,  penned  the  most  tremendous 
of  Abolition  tracts,  Uncle  Tom's  Cabin.  The  Atlantic 
Monthly  Magazine,  which  became  the  dominant  directing 
force  of  the  new  literature,  was  founded  with  the  quiet 
intention  of  opposing  to  slavery  the  higher  sentiment  of 
the  North  in  ways  less  direct  and  offensive  than  those 
of  The  Liberator. 

The  intuitional  philosophy,  from  which  the  Transcen 
dentalism  of  New  England  sprang,  was  but  one  of  the 
channels  by  which  German  currents  had  begun  to  water 
the  soil  of  the  New  World.  Our  mid-century  painting 
abjured  the  English  and  Italian  schools  for  that  of  Diis- 
seldorf  on  the  Rhine,  whither  our  young  artists  flocked. 
Leutze,  known  throughout  the  land  by  his  Washington 
Crossing  the  Delaware,  introduced  the  Diisseldorf  style, 
though  with  an  added  dash  of  sternness  and  flavor  of 
sobriety.  A  new  landscape  fashion,  fathered  by  Bier- 
stadt,  a  native  of  Diisseldorf,  who  had  travelled  in  the 
Rockies,  came  into  vogue.  Bold  and  sometimes  grandi 
ose  paintings  of  mountain  chains,  sheer  ravines,  prairie 
reaches  with  a  solitary  figure  of  pony-riding  Indian  or 
bison-tracking  hunter,  held  sway.  The  new  West  had 


Ill  NATIONAL  ERA:   GENERAL  ASPECTS 

captured  the  artists.  Yet  Kensett  loved  best  the  au 
tumnal  shores  of  quiet  lakes,  and  Gifford,  with  his  rich 
sense  of  atmosphere,  often  turned  from  Pacific  scenery 
back  to  the  haunted  Hudson.  Before  the  sixties,  Ameri 
can  painting  was  already  chastened  in  tone.  "  Gracious 
studies  of  light,"  notes  Professor  Muther,  "and  intimate 
views  of  forest  paths,  and  distant  huts  and  meadowland, 
took  the  place  of  pompous  dramatic  efforts,  wild  moun 
tain  landscapes,  and  glaring  fireworks." 

Meanwhile  American  sculpture  had  come  into  being. 
Greenough  and  Powers,  both  born  in  1805,  the  one  the 
son  of  a  wealthy  Boston  merchant,  the  other  a  Vermont 
farmer's  boy,  led  the  way  to  Italy.  Before  the  middle 
of  the  century,  Powers  had  won  a  European  fame  by  his 
Greek  Slave.  But  in  general  the  initial  group  of  Ameri 
can  sculptors  wrought  directly  on  American  subjects, 
producing  busts  and  statues  of  the  public  men  of  the 
day,  and  the  heroes  of  the  Revolution.  Washington 
appeared  in  every  guise,  seated,  on  foot,  on  horseback, 
and  even  as  an  Olympian  Zeus.  Now  and  then  a  perilous 
instant  of  pioneer  life,  as  The  Rescue,  was  frozen  into 
marble.  An  ideal  figure  of  Liberty,  by  Crawford,  the 
leading  sculptor  of  the  Middle  States,  crowned  the  dome 
of  the  national  Capitol,  upon  whose  bronze  doors  the 
same  artist  has  recorded  the  War  of  Independence. 

Crawford's  colossal  statue  of  Beethoven,  executed  for 
Boston  Music  Hall,  testifies  to  the  growing  appreciation 
of  music.  About  the  middle  of  the  century  political 
exiles  from  Italy,  coming  to  New  York  in  considerable 


I2O  AMERICAN   LITERATURE  CHAP. 

numbers,  brought  with  them  a  musical  enthusiasm  which 
did  not  rest  until  Italian  opera,  with  adequate  orchestra, 
was  given  in  that  city.  The  German  element  in  New 
York,  too,  was  felt  musically  more  and  more,  especially  in 
the  Philharmonic  Society.  Parisian  artists  gave  regular 
seasons  of  French  opera  in  New  Orleans.  Here  the  opera 
was  often  followed  by  a  ball,  a  great  swinging  floor  being 
lowered,  on  which  the  blithe  Creoles  would  dance  till 
dawn.  Boston,  as  became  her  Puritan  traditions,  espe 
cially  cultivated  the  oratorio.  It  was  Boston,  too,  that 
first  introduced  the  study  of  vocal  music  into  the  public 
schools.  The  many  musical  societies  naturally  led  to 
musical  conventions  and  festivals.  Prima  donnas  from 
over  sea,  little  companies  of  foreign  singers,  and  even 
itinerant  orchestras  made  the  tour  of  the  American 
towns.  The  visit  of  Jenny  Lind  extended  over  two 
years.  Yet  original  American  music  of  scope  and  signifi 
cance  was  still  to  seek,  though  minor  contributions  to  the 
world's  melody  were  occasionally  made.  Payne's  simple 
song  of  Home,  Sweet  Home  has  outlasted  all  his  operas, 
in  one  of  which  it  was  set.  Efforts  were  put  forth  to 
stimulate  native  production.  In  1855,  for  instance,  Ole 
Bull,  as  opera-manager  of  the  Academy  of  Music,  offered 
a  prize  of  one  thousand  dollars  for  the  best  opera  by  an 
American  composer  on  an  American  subject;  but  the 
project  came  to  nothing. 

American  drama,  despite  similar  attempts  on  the  part 
of  Edwin  Forrest  to  bribe  the  Muses,  still  made  but  a 
paltry  showing.  Plays  with  Indian  chiefs  for  heroes 


Ill  NATIONAL  ERA:   GENERAL  ASPECTS  121 

gradually  shuffled  into  crude  spectacles  of  frontier  ad 
venture,  the  dime  novel  behind  the  footlights.  The  new 
stage-hero  was  initiated  in  1831  by  Paulding  with  his 
Colonel  Nimrod  Wildfire,  convincing  in  buckskin  attire 
and  ticklish  tilt  of  the  rifle.  The  Forty-niners  in  due 
season  swaggered  across  the  stage,  and  the  eastern 
theatres,  in  general,  kept  their  audiences  in  mind  of 
that  westward-rolling  cloud  of  our  hardiest  American 
manhood. 

During  the  period  now  under  review  the  art  of  life  came 
in  for  literary  consideration.  American  ways  then,  as  since, 
were  variously  displeasing  to  our  outspoken  guests  from 
abroad.  The  Pulszkys,  coming  over  with  the  Kossuths  in 
the  middle  of  the  century,  found  American  children  pert, 
our  city  architecture  either  monotonous  or  inharmoniously 
eclectic,  the  New  York  Herald  unprincipled,  our  national 
integrity  better  than  our  national  monuments,  and  spiritu 
alism  in  full  career.  Mrs.  Trollope,  who  visited  us  some 
twenty  years  earlier,  seeing  mainly  Cincinnati,  and  Cin 
cinnati  in  its  younger  days,  complained  that  there  were 
too  many  miles  of  mud  at  the  mouth  of  the  Mississippi, 
and  too  much  American  boasting  on  its  steamboats,  that 
our  servants  were  intolerably  democratic,  and  that  the 
leading  men  of  the  West  ate  with  their  knives,  spat  in 
public  places,  and  sat  tipped  back  in  their  chairs,  "  ex 
quisite  posture  masters,"  with  their  heels  above  their 
heads.  Harriet  Martineau  judged  us  kindly,  although 
she,  like  Mrs.  Kemble,  was  shocked  at  slavery,  but  the 
disgust  of  Dickens,  the  beloved  Dickens  whom  we  had 


122  AMERICAN   LITERATURE  CHAP. 

welcomed  with  open  arms  and  open  purses,  cut  us  to  the 
quick.  What  was  false  and  foolish  in  all  this  criticism 
could  be  forgiven.  The  rub  came  with  what  was  just 
and  true.  Fortunately  for  America,  she  had,  in  these 
awkward  years  of  her  overgrowth,  teachers  as  well  as 
censors.  Channing  urged  continually  the  beauty  of 
dignity,  of  quiet  simplicity,  of  repose.  Irving  was  a 
potent  illustration  of  "  gentleness  untired  "  and  "  noble 
feeling  warm."  Our  Cambridge  poets,  the  benignant 
Longfellow,  the  genial  Lowell,  the  sparkling  Holmes, 
typical  American  gentlemen  of  a  refinement  unfeigned 
and  unashamed,  set  a  fair  example.  Thoreau,  for 
all  his  tart  emphasis  on  individuality,  loved  a  high 
behavior,  and  Emerson  went  up  and  down  the  rugged 
land  praising  on  bare  Lyceum  platforms  "the  delicacy 
of  beautiful  carriage  and  customs."  Charm  of  manner, 
he  says  succinctly,  "  gives  a  higher  pleasure  than  statues 
or  pictures  ;  it  is  the  finest  of  the  fine  arts." 

V.  From  Lincoln  to  McKinley.  —  At  the  commence 
ment  of  the  Civil  War,  the  country  held  some  thirty-one 
million  people.  Of  these  the  seceding  states  counted 
less  than  nine  million,  more  than  one-third  slaves.  The 
Cotton-State  Confederacy  had  hoped  for  support  from 
all  the  slave  area,  which  was  greater  than  the  free  area, 
from  the  newly  settled  Northwest,  from  the  Democratic 
party  in  New  England  and  the  Middle  States,  and  finally 
from  France  and  Great  Britain.  These  hopes  failing, 
not  the  military  genius  of  Lee  nor  the  desperate  gallantry 
of  the  southern  armies  could  save  the  cause  of  secession, 


Ill  NATIONAL  ERA:   GENERAL  ASPECTS  123 

identified  as  it  was  with  the  cause  of  slavery.  Four 
years  of  national  agony,  a  public  debt  of  nearly  three 
thousand  million  dollars,  a  depreciated  currency,  the 
temporary  ruin  of  southern  prosperity,  and  the  sacrifice 
of  nearly  a  million  of  our  best  and  bravest  lives,  crowned 
by  the  martyrdom  of  Lincoln,  were  the  first  items  in  the 
long  bill  of  costs.  Others  have  since  come  in,  as  heavy 
pension  charges,  the  social  demoralization  due  to  army 
life,  the  rapid  growth  of  monopolies  and  a  consequent 
breach  between  rich  and  poor ;  but  Union  and  Emanci 
pation  could  hardly  be  bought  too  dear.  The  national 
gains,  too,  were  not  confined  to  the  triumph  of  the 
Federal  principle  and  the  abolition  of  slavery.  The  New 
South  is  already  richer,  abler,  more  joyous  than  the  Old. 
She  has  developed  mechanical  industries,  opened  up 
her  immense  coal-fields  and  iron-beds,  more  than  re 
covered  her  productiveness  in  cotton  and  become,  in 
manufacture,  commerce,  and  literature,  a  fresh  and 
vital  force.  The  swiftness  with  which  the  wounds  of 
war  were  healed  has  strengthened  confidence  in  Ameri 
can  government  and  American  character.  The  revolted 
states  have  long  been  reinstated.  The  leaders  in 
rebellion  have  rendered  good  service  in  congresses  and 
cabinets. 

But  the  work  of  reconstruction,  deprived  of  Lincoln's 
generous  wisdom  and  complicated  by  bitter  quarrels  be 
tween  Lincoln's  successor,  Vice-President  Johnson  of 
Tennessee,  and  the  suspicious  Senate,  was  of  the  hardest. 
With  the  South  struggling  against  carpet-bag  rule,  and 


124  AMERICAN   LITERATURE  CHAP. 

the  North  absorbed  with  the  new  expansion  of  business, 
the  national  leadership  has  fallen  to  the  "  Old  North 
west."  The  centres  of  manufacturing  and  of  population 
are  here,  although  financial  control  is  still  with  Wall 
Street.  As  Lincoln  had  come  from  Illinois,  so  Grant, 
Hayes,  Garfield,  and  McKinley  came  from  Ohio, 
and  Harrison  from  Indiana.  Cleveland  is  the  excep 
tion,  although  his  city,  Buffalo,  is  on  the  northwest 
border. 

The  tendency  of  this  western  civilization  seems  at  first 
sight  to  set  toward  materialism.  Ohio  and  Indiana,  with 
their  natural  gas  and  petroleum,  their  iron  and  coal, 
Michigan,  with  her  grain  and  lumber,  Wisconsin,  with 
her  dairies  and  breweries,  and  Illinois,  with  her  strong 
energies  divided  among  agriculture,  manufacture,  and 
commerce,  have  all  made  haste  to  be  rich.  This  utilita 
rian  example  has  been  diligently  followed  the  country 
over.  A  population  numbering  now  more  than  three 
score  millions,  dwelling  in  a  national  area  of  three 
million  and  a  half  square  miles,  has  been  hitherto  more 
intent  on  money-getting  and  money-spending  than  on 
the  cultivation  of  the  aesthetic  and  spiritual  life.  The 
material  development  has  been  on  a  gigantic  scale. 
The  United  States  of  to-day  is  nine  times  as  large  as 
the  United  States  of  1800.  West  Virginia,  beautiful  for 
scenery,  silver  Nevada,  the  wheat-waving  states  of  Ne 
braska  and  the  Dakotas,  Colorado,  rich  in  precious 
ores,  Montana,  Washington,  and  Idaho,  with  their  mines 
and  cattle-ranges,  Wyoming,  the  experimenter  in  woman 


Ill  NATIONAL  ERA:   GENERAL  ASPECTS  125 

suffrage,  and  Utah,  cleansed  of  her  Mormon  polygamy, 
have  swelled  the  roll  of  states  to  forty-five.  The  terri 
tories  of  Arizona,  New  Mexico,  and  Oklahoma,  with  the 
half-organized  Alaska,  reputed  a  new  El  Dorado,  wait 
their  turn.  The  West,  so  recently  an  Indian  hunting- 
ground,  is  dotted  by  cities,  where  closely  packed  steel 
towers  shoot  up  within  a  few  months  higher  than  the 
old  cathedrals  to  whose  rearing  went  centuries.  The 
splendid  insolence  of  invention  taps  Niagara  and  makes 
a  public  drudge  of  electricity.  There  is  no  lack  of 
heroic  enterprise.  The  Dark  Continent  is  invaded, 
the  Arctic  ice  is  dared,  but  even  heroism  is  exploited 
by  the  great  newspapers  and  takes  on  an  advertising 
flavor. 

So  prodigious  a  development  is  attended  with  peculiar 
perils.  At  the  close  of  the  Civil  War,  Lowell's  tribute 
to  the  delivered  country  thrilled  every  hearer  with  a 
nobler  national  joy : 

"  Be  proud !  for  she  is  saved,  and  all  have  helped  to  save  her ! 
She  that  lifts  up  the  manhood  of  the  poor, 
She  of  the  open  soul  and  open  door, 
With  room  about  her  hearth  for  all  mankind  !  " 

But  at  the  present  time  the  overwhelming  inrush  of 
foreigners  presents  so  grave  a  problem  that  our  keen- 
eyed  observer,  Kipling,  pays  the  American  for  his  hos 
pitalities  but  a  satiric  compliment : 

"  His  easy  unswept  hearth  he  lends 
From  Labrador  to  Guadeloupe; 
Till,  elbowed  out  by  sloven  friends, 
He  camps,  at  suffrance,  on  the  stoop." 


126  AMERICAN   LITERATURE  CHAP. 

To  look  down  upon  the  steerage  decks  of  the  Atlantic 
liners  that  pass  in  unending  procession  through  New 
York  harbor  beneath  Bartholdi's  statue  of  Liberty  en 
lightening  the  World  is  to  see,  through  ignorance,  squalor, 
and  the  Babel  of  strange  tongues,  the  America  of  to 
morrow.  Chicago,  in  Jackson's  day  a  frontier  fort  and 
now  second  only  to  New  York,  is  the  fifth  German  city 
of  the  globe,  the  third  Swedish,  and  the  second  Polish. 
The  hungry  hordes  from  Europe  and  Asia  have  con 
tributed,  in  a  sense,  to  the  national  wealth.  Gangs  of 
unskilled  laborers,  Irish,  Chinese,  Italians,  Hungarians, 
have  built  our  railroads,  laid  our  water-pipes  and  gas- 
pipes,  levelled  our  highways,  opened  our  mines,  and 
thus  made  possible  the  swift  material  expansion  of  the 
last  sixty  years ;  but  they  have  created  our  city  slums, 
helped  debase  our  city  politics,  and  hurled  us  prema 
turely  upon  the  labor  question. 

We  have  tried  to  believe  that  we  have  no  labor  ques 
tion.  "  In  a  land,"  says  Mr.  Howells,  "where  journeymen 
carpenters  and  plumbers  strike  for  four  dollars  a  day,  the- 
sum  of  hunger  and  cold  is  comparatively  small,  and  the 
wrong  from  class  to  class  has  been  almost  inappreciable, 
though  all  this  is  changing  for  the  worse."  There  was 
no  labor  agitation  of  consequence  anywhere  in  the  coun 
try  before  the  Revolution.  During  the  first  quarter  of 
the  present  century  a  few  trades-unions  were  formed ; 
but  a  Frenchman,  M.  Chevalier,  visiting  America  in  1834, 
stated,  by  way  of  comparison,  that  while  such  unions  in 
the  Old  World  threatened  war  between  labor  and  capital, 


- 


Ill  NATIONAL  ERA:   GENERAL  ASPECTS  I2/ 

"in  America,  on  the  contrary,  such  a  coalition  means, 
raise  our  wages,  or  we  go  to  the  West."  The  skurry  for 
Oklahoma,  in  1889,  showed  how  little  desirable  land  is 
still  open.  Instead  of  a  free  West  for  those  to  whom  the 
East  metes  out  hard  measure,  there  is,  from  Atlantic  to 
Pacific,  the  competition  with  cheap  immigrant  labor. 
Capital  is  in  control,  monopolies  dominate  the  markets, 
and  we  have  at  last  within  our  borders  not  merely  the 
army  of  tramps,  the  secret  session  of  anarchists,  but 
the  honest,  able  artisan,  seemingly  without  his  share  in 
the  national  heritage  of  liberty,  working  hard  to  find 
hard  work  to  do,  bewildered  and  embittered  by  the  new 
industrial  dependence  that  the  years  have  so  suddenly 
brought  upon  him.  Over  one-fourth  of  the  mechanics 
and  factory  hands  of  the  United  States  are  now  organized 
to  fight  for  comely  American  existence.  Within  the  last 
two  decades  have  occurred  a  succession  of  ominous 
strikes.  Pittsburg,  Homestead,  Chicago,  are  the  names 
of  battlefields. 

Against  these  and  other  dangers  stand  arrayed  the  con 
science  of  the  country,  the  alert  intelligence,  hopeful 
energy,  and  earnest  patriotism  of  rich  and  poor  alike. 
So  great  and  complex  a  republic,  trying  for  all  mankind 
the  mighty  experiment  of  "  government  of  the  people,  by 
the  people,  for  the  people,"  must  needs  make  many  stum 
bles  by  the  way ;  but  it  has  sinewy  strength  to  rise  again. 
If  the  western  farmers  suffer,  the  best  brains  in  the  land 
fall  to  ferreting  out  the  economic  causes  of  that  suffering. 
Only  with  Garfield  began  that  Civil  Service  Reform  which 


128  AMERICAN   LITERATURE  CHAP. 

already  is  practically  accomplished.  America  has  long 
realized  that  she  stands  pledged  before  the  elder  nations 
of  the  earth  to  demonstrate  the  power  of  democracy,  with 
its  free  schools,  free  ballot,  and  free  religious  thought,  to 
elevate  mankind.  Ever  mindful  of  her  workers,  she  has 
bent  an  unprecedented  inventive  and  industrial  activity 
to  increasing  the  sum  of  human  well-being.  She  cares 
greatly  for  education,  national  honor,  and  the  deeds  of 
Christian  mercy.  Her  capitalists  endow  universities  and 
public  libraries.  Political  parties  blur  their  lines  when 
the  country's  integrity  is  at  stake.  Her  charities  reach 
around  the  globe.  The  Puritan  leaven  is  still  at  work, 
and  still,  though  in  sterner  fashion,  the  words  of  Emerson 
hold  true  :  "  America  means  opportunity." 

VI.  Present  Artistic  Conditions.  —  American  men  of 
letters  are  too  busy  nowadays  to  achieve  the  best.  The 
"  broad  margins  "  to  life  that  Thoreau  loved,  few  allow 
themselves.  Sucked  in  ever  greater  numbers  into  the 
vortex  of  New  York,  they  are  spun  about,  like  mere 
bankers  and  brokers,  in  the  whirl.  Hawthorne  mused 
away  his  youth,  and  in  the  silences  there  ripened  golden 
fruit.  Our  literature  of  to-day  is  abundant,  varied,  clever, 
but  if  genius  is  among  us,  it  walks  unrecognized.  Not 
withstanding  the  high-hearted  music  of  Lanier,  the  deli 
cate  artistry  of  Aldrich,  the  fastidious  finesse  of  James, 
and  warmer  humanity  of  Howells,  no  literary  star  of  the 
first  magnitude  has  brightened  on  our  firmament  since 
the  Civil  War. 

Yet  our  educational  apparatus  is  more  elaborate  than 


Ill  NATIONAL  ERA:   GENERAL  ASPECTS  I2Q 

ever  before.  The  American  university  belongs  to  this 
third  period  of  the  century.  Johns  Hopkins  dates  from 
1876.  Columbia  and  Princeton  are  almost  as  new,  in 
their  enlarged  scope,  as  Chicago  and  Leland  Stanford. 
The  expansion  of  intellectual  life  has  at  last  reached 
woman.  In  1861  Vassar  led  the  way  that  Smith,  Welles- 
ley,  Bryn  Mawr,  Radcliffe,  Mount  Holyoke,  and  others 
have  been  swift  to  follow,  while  the  western  universities, 
on  Michigan's  frank  initiative,  have  thrown  their  doors 
wide  open  to  women,  and  the  eastern  are  beginning  to 
accord  them  at  least  an  eavesdropping  privilege. 

The  pecuniary  returns  for  writing,  uncertain  still,  were 
never  better.  The  American  daily,  disreputable  as  it  is 
beside  the  best  products  of  the  London  press,  has  become 
a  tremendous  engine,  rich,  adventurous,  all-consuming. 
If  its  probity  and  dignity  equalled  its  energy,  it  could 
hardly  be  overpraised  ;  but  even  with  all  its  imperfections 
on  its  head,  the  newspaper  has  been  for  a  century  our 
most  effective  instrument  of  democratic  education.  "  The 
Press  is  the  prostituted  companion  of  liberty,"  said  Fisher 
Ames,  the  Federalist  orator  of  Massachusetts,  "  and  some 
how  or  other,  we  know  not  how,  its  efficient  auxiliary.  It 
follows  the  substance  like  its  shade ;  but  while  a  man 
walks  erect,  he  may  observe  that  his  shadow  is  almost 
always  in  the  dirt.  ...  It  would  be  easy  to  enlarge  on 
its  evils.  They  are  in  England,  they  are  here,  they  are 
everywhere.  It  is  a  precious  pest  and  a  necessary  mis 
chief,  and  there  would  be  no  liberty  without  it."  It  is  esti 
mated  that  in  1 790  there  was  one  copy  of  a  newspaper 


I3O  AMERICAN   LITERATURE  CHAP. 

to  every  individual  in  the  land;  in  1890,  sixty  copies. 
Over  twenty  thousand  periodicals,  —  dailies,  weeklies, 
and  magazines,  —  are  to-day  printed  in  the  United  States, 
some  in  enormous  editions.  The  American  magazine, 
now  focussed  in  New  York,  long  had  its  favorite  seat  in 
Philadelphia.  Franklin,  Brockden  Brown,  Poe,  tended 
its  early  growth.  Many,  indeed,  of  our  literary  leaders, 
notably  Lowell,  Curtis,  Warner,  Howells,  Aldrich,  have  sat, 
at  one  time  or  another,  in  editorial  chairs,  while  in  these 
days  of  realistic  fiction  the  profession  of  journalism 
often  promotes  young  reporters  to  the  grade  of  litera 
ture.  With  the  Scribner's,  launched  by  Dr.  Holland 
early  in  the  seventies,  the  handsome  illustrated  magazine 
came  into  being,  while  the  nineties  are  witnessing  a  curi 
ous  outcropping  of  bibelots.  Our  magazines,  besides 
employing  artists  and  engravers  in  large  numbers,  pro 
vide  a  literary  market  of  a  higher  order  than  that  fur 
nished  by  press  syndicates  and  newspapers.  They  have 
had  much  to  do  with  developing  the  short  story,  dialect 
studies,  and  light  verse,  but  their  entertaining,  sketchy 
quality  is  injurious  to  the  mental  digestion. 

Music  has  become  a  recognized  factor  in  American 
life.  If  we  have  no  Beethoven  yet,  no  Mendelssohn,  we 
are  grateful  for  a  Thomas  and  a  Damrosch.  It  has 
been  a  century  of  musical  education  rather  than  crea 
tion.  Conservatories  of  music  have  arisen  in  our  chief 
cities.  Foreign  artists  reap  fortunes  from  their  Ameri 
can  trips.  Every  season  German  opera  draws  its 
thousands,  and  Italian  opera  its  tens  of  thousands. 


Ill  NATIONAL   ERA:   GENERAL  ASPECTS  131 

Lanier  has  many  sympathizers  in  his  saying  that  music 
and  an  open  fire  are  the  indispensables  of  a  home. 
The  Germans  enthusiastically  promote  musical  culture, 
especially  in  Chicago  and  other  cities  of  the  West. 
But  for  all  this,  we  are  not  yet,  as  a  nation,  musically 
sensitive  or  musically  expressive.  Our  democratic  eager 
ness  to  become  capable  of  the  best,  the  determination 
to  achieve  a  sincere  and  intelligent  delight  in  every 
form  of  beauty,  is  more  marked  among  us  than  the 
naturally  aesthetic  temperament.  We  are  practically 
without  folk-songs.  The  "  merry  whistled  tunes "  of 
the  barefoot  boy  cheer  our  village  streets,  but  our 
college  glees  are  shallow  and  hard  beside  the  romantic 
balladry  of  German  students.  Something  of  spirit  and 
of  passion,  however,  still  haunts  the  songs  of  the  Civil 
War.  Our  best  indigenous  melodies,  those  that  be 
guiled  the  weariness  of  rice-swamp,  cotton-field,  and 
sugar-plantation,  that  rose  from  negro  cabin  and  forest 
camp-meeting,  are  already  becoming  a  lost  art.  The 
meekness,  the  yearning,  the  pathos  so  weirdly  inter- 
blent  with  those  artless  strains  are  hardly  within  the 
compass  of  the  young  voices  of  the  colored  race. 
That  piteous  beauty  was  inwrought  with  slavery.  The 
tones  of  freedom  miss  the  subtler  cadences.  It  is 
reasonable  to  expect,  however,  contributions  to  music, 
as  well  as  to  oratory  and  the  other  arts,  from  the 
Afro-Americans  in  their  later  development.  The  Uncle 
Remus  stories  have  crystallized  a  part  of  their  uncon 
scious  literature.  Paul  Lawrence  Dunbar  has  recently 


132  AMERICAN   LITERATURE  CHAP. 

come  before  the  public  as  a  promising  negro  poet,  but 
it  is  too  early  yet  to  ask  much  at  their  hands.  Nor 
have  the  Indians  spoken  through  the  arts.  Altar- 
mounds  and  shell-heaps,  the  musical  names  of  lake 
and  mountain,  fragments  of  folk-lore,  tell  us  far  too 
little  of  that  proud  race  we  have  dispossessed.  The 
Leather-Stocking  Novels,  Hiawatha,  and  Ramona  have 
tried  to  be  their  interpreters,  but  we  look  to  the  grad 
uates  of  Hampton  and  Carlisle  for  a  more  authentic 
voice. 

In  the  realm  of  painting,  negro  scenes  have  been 
rendered  by  a  few  recent  artists,  and  the  Indians  have  at 
least  one  champion  of  the  brush  ;  but,  as  a  rule,  our  lead 
ing  painters  of  to-day  concern  themselves  little  with  dis 
tinctively  American  subjects.  Our  sculptors,  from  the 
nature  of  the  case,  are  more  constant.  The  point  of  de 
parture  for  the  art  of  this  third  period  of  the  century 
may  be  taken  as  1863,  when  the  corner-stone  of  the  New 
York  Academy  of  Design  was  laid.  There  was  a  passing 
reflection  of  English  Pre-Raphaelitism,  but  the  chosen 
school  of  American  painting  since  the  Civil  War  has 
been  Paris.  Even  sculpture,  within  the  last  quarter- 
century,  has  turned  from  Rome  to  the  new  inspiration 
by  the  Seine.  If  Story  and  Miss  Hosmer  have  been 
faithful  to  Italy,  St.  Gaudens  brings  the  fresh  power  of 
France.  With  a  native  predilection  for  natural  scenery, 
American  painters  fell  readily  in  with  the  French  move 
ment  toward  landscape,  yet  our  artists,  many  of  them 
half  Europeans  by  residence  and  habit,  bind  them- 


ill  NATIONAL  ERA:   GENERAL  ASPECTS  133 

selves  to  no  school,  and  may  be  distinguished  by  no 
dominant  national  note.  Inness,  Vedder,  Sargent, 
stand  for  widely  varying  fashions.  For  the  last  twenty 
years,  the  work  of  our  painters  and  sculptors  has  con 
spicuously  illustrated  American  dexterity  no  less  than 
American  versatility.  For  the  first  time  in  our  art  his 
tory,  technique  has  been  mastered.  In  the  plastic  arts, 
as  in  music,  the  education  of  the  people  goes  on  apace. 
Under  the  golden  touch  of  millionnaires  and  the  strong 
impulsion  of  public  spirit,  picture  galleries  have  been 
established  of  late  years  not  only  in  the  principal  cities, 
but  in  quiet  towns  and  on  many  a  college  campus. 
Private  collections  of  high  merit  are  accumulated, 
masterpieces  are  loaned  for  public  view,  art  schools 
flourish,  and  the  amateur  and  connoisseur  lend  a  flavor 
to  daily  talk.  The  great  Expositions,  culminating  in  the 
World's  Fair  at  Chicago,  have  been  of  incalculable  bene 
fit  not  only  in  the  direct  patronage  of  American  artists, 
but  in  radiating  aesthetic  interest  throughout  the  land. 
The  magazines,  with  their  famous  illustrators,  the  new 
stained  glass  that  Tiffany  and  La  Farge  are  putting  into 
our  churches,  even  the  fads  for  wood-carving  and  photog 
raphy,  have  culture-values. 

President  Jefferson  was  once  moved  to  remark  that 
"  the  genius  of  architecture  seemed  to  have  shed  a  pecul 
iar  malediction  over  America."  After  the  happy  devel 
opment  of  the  Colonial  dwelling-house,  there  succeeded 
a  century  of  irresponsible  experiments.  Capitols  with 
Roman  domes,  banks  adapted  from  Doric  temples,  plain 


134  AMERICAN   LITERATURE  CHAP. 

commercial  blocks  and  Gothic  school-houses,  Queen 
Anne  cottages  and  barrack  hotels,  make  a  fantastic  med 
ley.  Our  pet  principle  of  Independence,  as  applied  to 
building,  leaves  much  to  be  desired.  From  all  this 
chaos  there  has  been  evolved  no  style  distinctively 
American,  unless  Richardson,  who  studied  in  Paris  and 
began  his  professional  activity  at  the  close  of  the  Civil 
War,  may  be  thought  to  have  given  the  hint.  The  hope 
for  architecture,  as  for  all  our  arts,  including  literature, 
lies  in  the  stricter  training  and  wider  outlook  of  our  new 
craftsmen.  This  period  of  technical  discipline  is  but  the 
sharpening  of  the  tool  for  finer  and  more  momentous 
tasks.  The  White  City  flashed  a  vision  that  is  not 
forgotten. 

The  patriotic  temper,  just  now  on  the  qui  vive  for  the 
Great  American  Novel,  is  experiencing  a  slight  revival 
of  faith  in  our  long- lingering  drama.  Such  actors  as 
Booth,  Barrett,  Jefferson,  have  lent  new  dignity  to  the 
stage.  Our  modern  theatres  are  luxurious,  if  not  fire 
proof,  and  certain  companies,  as  Daly's  of  New  York, 
make  a  study  of  artistic  settings.  The  audiences  are  of 
better  quality  than  heretofore.  But  as  for  the  plays 
themselves,  with  the  Wild  West  relegated  to  Buffalo  Bill, 
and  with  the  memories  of  the  war  too  sore  for  any  large 
encouragement  of  Rebellion  drama,  managers  have  been 
compelled  to  draw  from  French  and  English  sources. 
Now  and  then,  however,  a  native  bit  of  society  comedy 
brightens  the  boards,  and  our  theatrical  critics,  from 
their  watch-towers  of  observation,  call  lustily  that  the 


Ill  NATIONAL  ERA:   GENERAL  ASPECTS  135 

American  drama  is  almost  in  sight  at  last.  Meanwhile, 
HowelPs  parlor  farces  are  the  delight  of  amateurs. 

No  observer  of  life  lives  in  a  golden  age.  We  look 
back  to  "  the  good  old  times  "  and  forward  to  the  millen 
nium,  but  our  own  era  misses  majesty.  This  last  third  of 
the  century  may  yet  win  "  a  glory  from  its  being  far,"  but 
it  looks  to-day  like  a  season  of  reaction  from  our  crucial 
strife  and  of  preparation  for  the  deeds  to  be.  If  litera 
ture  tends  at  present  to  be  a  craft  rather  than  a  calling, 
if  our  typical  author  is 

"  ne'er  at  leisure 
To  be  himself,  he  has  such  tides  of  business," 

we  can  at  least  rejoice  in  the  wide  diffusion  and  good 
average  quality  of  the  writing  ability.  Academic  treatises, 
especially  on  social  questions,  are  showered  from  the 
press.  If  the  master- songs  are  missing,  tuneful  voices 
answer  one  another  from  Appledore  to  the  wheatlands, 
and  on  to  "  white  Sierra's  verge."  With  Mary  E.  Wilkins 
and  Sarah  Orne  Jewett  exploring  the  nooks  and  corners 
of  New  England,  with  James  Lane  Allen  interpreting  the 
life  of  Kentucky,  and  Thomas  Nelson  Page  that  of  Vir 
ginia,  with  Mary  Murfree  revealing  the  secrets  of  the 
Tennessee  mountains,  with  Hamlin  Garland  doing  angry 
honor  to  the  western  farmer's  toil,  with  Mary  Halleck 
Foote  portraying  that  wild  mining  life  whose  prose  epic 
was  begun  by  Bret  Harte  in  The  Luck  of  Roaring  Camp, 
the  length  and  breadth  of  the  land  are  finding  speech. 

Over  a  century  ago  one  of  our  Huguenot  immigrants, 
Crevecceur,  wrote  hopefully  of  his  adopted  country : 


136  AMERICAN   LITERATURE  CHAP. 

"  Here  individuals  of  all  nations  are  melted  into  a  new 
race  of  men,  whose  labors  and  posterity  will  one  day 
cause  great  changes  in  the  world.  Americans  are  the 
western  pilgrims,  who  are  carrying  along  with  them  that 
great  mass  of  arts,  sciences,  vigor,  and  industry,  which 
began  long  since  in  the  East ;  they  will  finish  the  great 
circle."  A  review  of  the  hundred  years  brings  courage 
for  the  journey  but  begun. 


IV  NATIONAL  ERA:   POETRY  137 


CHAPTER   IV 

NATIONAL  ERA:    POETRY 

Let  the  great  world  bustle  on 

With  war  and  trade,  with  camp  and  town, 

A  thousand  men  shall  dig  and  eat; 

At  forge  and  furnace  thousands  sweat; 

And  thousands  sail  the  purple  sea, 

And  give  or  take  the  stroke  of  war, 

Or  crowd  the  market  and  bazaar; 

Oft  shall  war  end,  and  peace  return, 

And  cities  rise  where  cities  burn, 

Ere  one  man  my  hill  shall  climb, 

Who  can  turn  the  golden  rhyme. 

—  EMERSON,  Saadi. 

I.  William  Cullen  Bryant  is  the  patriarch  of  American 
poetry.  He  alone  comes  over  to  us  from  the  eighteenth 
century.  Thanatopsis  was  published  two  years  before 
Lowell  and  Whitman  were  born.  This  hardly  constitutes 
antiquity,  but  taken  with  the  living  memory  and  common 
portrait  of  Bryant  as  a  bald-crowned,  shaggy-browed, 
rugged  old  sage,  his  lower  face  obscured  in  a  snowy 
drift  of  beard,  it  has  impressed  him  on  the  popular  im 
agination  as  a  very  Father  Time.  Yet  he  was  only  a  six- 
year-old  when  the  century  was  rounded,  "  a  little  chap 
with  flaxen  hair  and  flashing  eyes,"  much  in  awe  of  Squire 
Snell,  his  Calvinistic  grandfather,  but  more  at  ease  with 


138  AMERICAN   LITERATURE  CHAP. 

his  grandmother,  who  used  to  chalk  him  a  delightfully 
dreadful  figure  of  the  devil,  "  Old  Crooktail,"  on  the 
kitchen  floor.  Their  daughter,  Bryant's  mother,  was  a 
New  England  housewife  of  the  firm,  efficient  pattern, 
very  sure  as  to  the  dividing  line  between  good  and  evil, 
having  her  own  opinion  even  of  her  husband's  idol,  Mr. 
Pope,  but  intensely  preoccupied  with  the  practical  prob 
lem  of  making  the  two  ends  meet.  There  was  the  more 
need  for  her  energetic  industry,  her  mending  and  saving, 
in  that  her  husband,  descended,  like  herself,  from  the 
Plymouth  Pilgrims,  was  touched  with  the  dreamer's  mal 
ady.  He  was  of  vigorous  frame,  a  physician,  as  his  father 
and  grandfather  had  been  before  him,  and  a  man  of 
prominence  in  local  politics,  but  he  was  always  poor. 
A  new  book  could  make  him  oblivious  both  of  patient 
and  fee.  A  versifier  himself,  he  was  his  son's  sympa 
thetic  critic,  and  hardly  less  helpfully,  his  companion  in 
botanizing  strolls  through  the  picturesque  hill-country 
enclosing  Cummington,  then  a  new  settlement  in  western 
Massachusetts.  The  Snell  homestead,  where  Dr.  Bryant 
early  brought  his  family  to  live,  was  no  bad  place  for 
rearing  boys.  The  farm  work,  when  not  too  hard,  was 
healthy;  the  homespun  clothing  comfortable,  and  the 
simple  diet  wholesome,  while,  in  one  way  or  another, 
the  verse-loving  father  found  money  for  books.  After 
supper  and  chores,  the  Bryant  boys  would  fling  them 
selves  down  on  the  floor,  with  brown  heads  to  the 
crackling  fire,  and  pore  over  Shakespeare  and  Spenser, 
Wordsworth,  Cowper,  and  Scott  the  winter  evenings 


IV  NATIONAL  ERA:   POETRY  139 

through,  the  grim  bundle  of  birchen  rods  hanging  on 
the  wall  above.  They  delighted  in  Pope's  Iliad,  secretly 
whittling  out  wooden  swords  for  themselves  and  trim 
ming  up  old  hats  with  plumes  of  tow,  helmet  fashion, 
in  preparation  for  heroic  combats  in  the  haymow.  In 
the  prevailing  religious  atmosphere,  William  put  up  pri 
vate  prayer  that  he  might  be  a  poet.  There  was  talk  of 
college,  and  he  was  tutored  for  a  while  by  the  Plainfield 
minister,  who  gave  him  bread  and  milk  board  and  Greek 
instruction  for  a  dollar  a  week.  It  was  a  wonderful 
amount  of  Greek  that  Bryant  got  for  his  dollar,  but  after 
a  few  months  at  Williams,  his  father's  poverty  put  an  end 
to  college  prospects.  In  the  summer  of  his  disappoint 
ment,  the  thoughtful  youth,  not  yet  eighteen,  wrote 
Thanatopsis.  The  poet  had  reached  full  stature.  Of 
his  remaining  sixty-six  years,  fourteen*  went  to  the  study 
and  practice  of  the  law  in  western  Massachusetts,  and 
the  rest  to  editorial  work,  chiefly  on  The  Evening  Post, 
in  New  York  City  —  years  sweetened  with  home  joys, 
brightened  with  congenial  companionships,  enriched  with 
foreign  travel,  and  crowned  with  abundant  honor.  He 
was  a  good  business  man,  a  journalist  of  honorable 
record,  a  speaker  much  in  demand  for  "  memorial  trib 
utes,"  and  a  fine  example  of  the  old-fashioned  citizen, 
prudent,  sagacious,  just.  A  poet  to  the  end,  he  drew 
his  inspiration  still  from  the  fountains  of  his  youth  —  the 
secrets  of  the  Hampshire  hills  and  the  grave,  pure  temper 
of  his  childhood's  home.  Those  noble  translations  of 
the  Iliad  and  Odyssey,  colossal  tasks  accomplished  after 


I4O  AMERICAN   LITERATURE  CHAP. 

he  had  climbed  the  threescore  years  and  ten,  fulfilled  his 
boyish  homage.  The  Flood  of  Years,  written  in  his  eighty- 
second  summer,  echoes  the  very  tone  of  Thanatopsis. 

Bryant's  poetry  is  stately,  lofty,  clear.  A  man  of  prac 
tised  self-control,  who  from  childhood  to  the  day  of  his 
death  rose  early,  ate  sparingly,  exercised  regularly,  his 
verse  is  equally  subject  to  rule.  No  impetuous  measures 
broke  from  his  pen.  Respect  for  law  and  order,  per 
sonal  reserve,  and  coldness  of  temperament  are  so  far 
from  being  the  traditional  make-up  of  a  poet  that  it  is 
no  wonder  the  critics  were  puzzled.  Blackwood's  Maga 
zine  characterized  Bryant,  when  he  had  reached  the  age  of 
thirty,  as  "  a  sensible  young  man  of  a  thrifty  disposition, 
who  knows  how  to  manage  a  few  plain  ideas  in  a  very 
handsome  way."  His  themes,  in  truth,  were  few.  He 
cared  for  freedom,  for  the  moral  aspect  of  life,  and 
supremely  for  nature.  Son  of  the  Pilgrims  though  he 
was,  the  poet  in  him  was  half  a  pagan,  but  only  half. 
His  stern  Anglo-Saxon  brooding  upon  death  and  the 
grave  is  touched,  at  times,  with  quiet  Christian  hope. 
Something  of  Roman  pride  mingles  in  Thanatopsis  with 
the  sombre  courage  and  ethical  resolve  of  Puritanism. 
Upon  the  poem  is  no  trace  of  youthful  turbulence  or 
rebellion.  It  is  a  clear-sighted  recognition  of  the 
inevitable  end  of  life,  and  a  solemn  acquiescence  in  the 
universal  destiny.  Allied  to  this  haunting  sadness  for 
"  the  fading  race  of  men  "  is  Bryant's  special  sense  of 
pathos  in  the  passing  of  the  Indians  from  their  ancient 
hunting-grounds. 


IV  NATIONAL  ERA:   POETRY  141 

But  as  the  New  England  arbutus  nestles  at  the 
base  of  granite  rocks,  so  from  among  the  massive, 
blank- verse  reveries  comes  now  and  then  the  fragrance 
of  a  dainty  lyric.  With  little  fancy  and  less  humor, 
Bryant  could  yet  be  spirited,  as  in  the  Song  of  Marion's 
Men,  playful,  as  in  Robert  of  Lincoln,  and  exquisitely 
tender,  as  in  June.  To  a  Waterfowl  is  distinguished 
by  a  peculiar  uplift.  The  sunset  so  vividly  pict 
ured,  the  solitary  flight  of  the  bird  through  "  desert 
and  illimitable  air,"  and  the  tranquil  faith  of  the  no 
less  isolated  beholder  unite  in  a  rarely  imaginative 
appeal.  But,  in  general,  Bryant's  self-repression  and 
narrow  range  are  to  his  disadvantage  as  an  artist.  Only 
when  he  stands  in  "  Nature's  loneliness  "  is  he  richly 
poetic.  "  He  is  original,"  says  Emerson,  "  because  he 
is  sincere,  —  a  true  painter  of  the  face  of  the  country 
and  of  the  sentiment  of  his  own  people.  It  is  his  proper 
praise  that  he  first,  and  he  only,  made  known  to  man 
kind  our  northern  landscape,  —  its  summer  splendor, 
its  autumn  russet,  its  winter  lights  and  glooms."  Now 
at  last  New  England  scenery  enters  literature.  Notwith 
standing  a  certain  monotony  in  Bryant's  nature  poems, 
and  a  preference  for  broad  effects,  his  detail  is  true. 
From  boyhood  he  had  known  "  the  yellow  violet's 
modest  bell,"  "gay  circles  of  anemones," 

"  The  little  wind-flower,  whose  just  opened  eye 
Is  blue  as  the  spring  heaven  it  gazes  at," 

the  gentian, 


142  AMERICAN   LITERATURE  CHAP. 

"that,  in  the  breeze, 
Nods  lonely,  of  her  beauteous  race  the  last," 

"  every  moss-cup  of  the  rock," 

"  and  all  the  flowers 

That  tuft  the  woodland  floor,  or  overarch 
The  streamlet." 

Before  he  had  studied  Greek,  he  was  versed  in  "  the 
gossip  of  swallows"  and  the  "mellow  descant"  of  the 
woodthrush.  He  sang  the  circle  of  the  year  from  the 
"  sparkling  frost-work  "  to  the  "  golden  lights,"  but  his 
autumnal  spirit  was  most  at  home  in  the  "colored 
shades"  of  October  or  in  that  enchanted  season  of 
Indian  summer, 

"  When  the  sound  of  dropping  nuts  is  heard,  though  all  the  trees 

are  still, 
And  twinkle  in  the  smoky  light  the  waters  of  the  rill." 

His  personal  loves  and  sorrows  were  blended  with  the 
consciousness  of  out-of-door  phenomena.  His  "  fairest 
of  the  rural  maids  "  is  likened  in  her  several  charms  to 
sylvan  springs  and  herbs,  to  winds  and  shadows.  His 
sister  perished  "with  the  flowers."  Human  as  he  was 
on  the  side  turned  toward  daily  life,  in  the  poet  there 
abode  something  lonely  and  majestic,  something  ele 
mental. 

II.  Henry  Wadsworth  Longfellow,  also  of  "  Mayflower  " 
descent,  was  more  gently  and  more  liberally  nurtured. 
His  mother,  the  daughter  and  sister  of  Revolutionary 
heroes,  was  a  delicate,  sweet-souled  woman,  and  hi^ 
father,  a  leading  lawyer  of  Portland,  Maine,  was  noted 


~v 

0 


AA/ 


Reproduced  by  permission  of  Houghton,  Mifflin  &  Co., 
Publishers  of  Longfellow's  Works. 


IV  NATIONAL  ERA:   POETRY  143 

for  courtesy  as  well  as  public  spirit.  In  the  "  beautiful 
town "  of  the  poet's  birth,  with  its  "  breezy  dome  of 
groves"  and  "sheen  of  the  far-surrounding  seas,"  there 
passed  upon  his  boyhood  the  ocean-spell,  the  "  longings 
wild  and  vain  "  stirred  by 

"  the  black  wharves  and  the  slips 

And  the  sea-tides  tossing  free ; 
And  the  Spanish  sailors  with  bearded  lips 
And  the  beauty  and  mystery  of  the  ships 

And  the  magic  of  the  sea." 

At  home  he  read  the  English  classics,  although  Irving's 
Sketch-Book  was  his  first  literary  fascination.  Soon  the 
blue-eyed,  rosy-cheeked  boy,  who  began,  at  thirteen,  to 
print  his  verses,  over  the  signature  of  Henry,  in  the  poet's 
corner  of  the  Portland  Gazette,  had  developed  into  the 
winsome  young  collegian,  studious,  a  trifle  fastidious,  but 
genial  as  sunshine.  Bowdoin  College  was  his  Alma 
Mater.  The  class  of  1825  numbered  some  thirty-eight 
young  men,  including  Pierce,  the  future  President, 
Abbott,  the  future  historian,  and  Hawthorne.  Long 
fellow,  graduated  at  eighteen,  stood  fourth  in  rank.  His 
Commencement  oration,  limited  to  seven  minutes,  had 
for  subject  Our  Native  Writers.  His  own  turn  for 
literature,  attested  not  only  by  college  exercises,  but  by 
a  few  magazine  poems  after  the  model  of  Bryant,  secured 
him  the  appointment  to  a  new  chair  of  modern  languages 
at  Bowdoin.  After  a  year  of  rest  and  reading  at  home 
and  three  years  of  study  abroad,  chiefly  in  the  countries 
of  southern  Europe,  he  took  up  the  cares  of  his  profes- 


144  AMERICAN   LITERATURE  CHAP. 

sion,  marrying,  shortly  after,  the  daughter  of  a  Portland 
neighbor.  During  this  peaceful  apprenticeship  at  Bow- 
doin,  the  youthful  professor,  who  had  ceased  to  write 
verses,  published  his  first  original  volume,  Outre-Mer,  in 
plan  and  style  resembling  the  Sketch-Book,  though  more 
blithely  boyish  in  sentiment.  After  five  years  of  resi 
dence  in  Brunswick,  Longfellow  was  invited  to  succeed 
Professor  Ticknor,  at  Harvard,  as  Smith  Professor  of 
Modern  Languages,  and  again  he  sailed  for  Europe,  this 
time  with  the  intention  of  studying  the  northern  tongues. 
At  Rotterdam  sorrow  waited  him.  There  his  young  wife 
suffered  and  died.  "  He  bowed  his  head,  and  would  fain 
have  been  bound  up  in  the  same  sheaf  with  the  sweet  blue 
flower."  In  his  grief  and  yearning,  German  romanticism, 
with  its  tenderness,  its  dreaminess,  its  fulness  of  feeling, 
laid  strong  hold  upon  him.  Hyperion,  a  prose  transcript 
of  his  emotions  during  that  year  of  lonely  wandering,  is 
a  clearer,  softer  echo  of  Richter.  And  now  the  poetic 
fountains,  dumb  for  nearly  a  decade,  were  at  last  un 
sealed.  Longfellow's  thirtieth  birthday  found  him  duly 
installed  in  Washington's  chamber  of  the  Craigie  House 
at  Cambridge,  writing  Voices  of  the  Night.  Thenceforth 
his  career  was  distinctively  that  of  a  poet.  A  rambling 
romance  of  New  England  village  life,  Kavanagh,  was  his 
farewell  to  prose.  He  held  his  Harvard  chair  for  nearly 
twenty  years,  retiring  before  he  was  fifty.  Tragedy 
touched  his  later  life  in  the  death  by  fire,  before  his  eyes, 
of  the  second  Mrs.  Longfellow,  a  Boston  lady  whom  the 
poet  had  wooed  through  his  Hyperion.  As  Bryant  after 


IV  NATIONAL  ERA:   POETRY  145 

the  death  of  his  wife  sought  relief  in  Homeric  trans 
lations,  so  Longfellow  strove  to  forget  himself  in  a 
metrical  rendering,  scholarly  and  sensitive,  of  Dante's 
Divina  Commedia.  He  had  from  his  student  days  a 
peculiar  ease  in  translation,  and,  to  the  end,  his  succes 
sive  volumes  abounded  in  versions  of  foreign  lyrics,  but 
it  was  his  original  poetry  that  crowned  him  with  honor 
abroad,  and  at  home  with  such  affection  as  has  blessed 
few  singers  of  the  earth.  The  Voices  of  the  Night,  issued 
in  his  thirty-third  year,  breathed  a  purity  and  nobility  of 
spirit  that  gave  it  household  welcome  the  country  over. 
A  Psalm  of  Life,  The  Light  of  Stars,  Footsteps  of  Angels, 
clothed  with  a  fresh  benignant  beauty  the  human  pain 
and  struggle.  A  second  volume,  two  years  later,  con 
firmed  his  fame.  Such  ballads  as  The  Skeleton  in 
Armor  and  The  Wreck  of  the  Hesperus  did  not  go  beg 
ging  for  plaudits.  The  antislavery  poems  of  the  follow 
ing  year,  subdued  though  they  seem  beside  Whittier's 
passionate  protests,  have  Longfellow's  own  pleasant, 
flexible  movement  and  earnest  sympathy.  The  Spanish 
Student,  a  well-devised  drama,  was  succeeded  by  an 
artistic  group  of  lyrics,  including  The  Belfry  of  Bruges 
and  The  Norman  Baron.  The  foreign  flavor  of  Long 
fellow's  poetry  sweetened  the  American  air.  This  Har 
vard  professor  was  unconsciously  a  great  forerunner 
of  university  extension.  He  was  becoming  the  poetic 
schoolmaster  of  the  land,  not  only  winning  it  to  the 
love  of  song,  but  accustoming  his  Puritan-bred,  utilitarian 
audience  to  the  richer  lights  in  which  Europe  views  the 


146  AMERICAN   LITERATURE  CHAP. 

human  spectacle.  In  Evangeline,  Hiawatha,  and  The 
Courtship  of  Miles  Standish  Longfellow  chose  American 
themes,  but  he  used  a  classical  measure  for  the  pathetic 
tale  of  Acadie  and  the  half-humorous  Plymouth  tradition, 
while  he  borrowed  the  Finnish  epic-verse  for  his  wildwood 
Indian  legend.  In  the  Tales  of  the  Wayside  Inn  he 
built,  as  a  rule,  with  foreign  timber.  Meanwhile  his 
lyrics,  garnered  in  an  occasional  volume,  kept  the  sweet 
old  charm,  a  charm  compounded  of  gracious  feeling  and 
delicate  taste.  Songs  of  family  loves  and  losses,  of  Cam 
bridge  friendships,  of  memories  of  youth  alternated  with 
snatches  of  Saxon  and  Icelandic  story.  Rabbinical  tale 
and  mediaeval  legend  mingled  with  strains  of  our  Civil 
War.  But  loyal  as  the  public  remained  to  his  lighter 
verse,  the  long-planned,  threefold  tragedy  of  Christus 
aroused,  apart  from  The  Golden  Legend,  but  little  enthu 
siasm,  while  his  Judas  Maccabczus  and  Masque  of  Pan 
dora,  diverse  experiments  in  drama,  pleased  his  readers 
less  than  the  wedding  revery  entitled  The  Hanging  of  the 
Crane.  The  fiftieth  anniversary  of  the  class  of  1825 
called  forth  the  twilight  notes  of  Morituri  Salutamus, 
but  before  the  darkness  fell,  there  were  yet  seven  years 
of  music.  White-haired,  tranquil,  with  a  stately  gentle 
ness  of  mien  and  an  unwearied  courtesy  in  greeting  all 
sorts  and  conditions  of  guests,  still  the  poet  sent  forth  from 
the  beautiful  study  of  the  Craigie  House  booklet  after 
booklet.  In  Keramos  the  aged  pilgrim,  resting  after 
many  journeys,  dreamed  again  of  alien  lands  and  races, 
lulled  in  his  trance  by  the  drowsy  song  of  the  Potter : 


IV  NATIONAL  ERA:    POETRY  147 

"  Turn,  turn,  my  wheel !     All  life  is  brief; 
What  now  is  bud  will  soon  be  leaf, 
What  now  is  leaf  will  soon  decay." 

Ultima  Thule  reflected  the  chastened  glory  of  old  age 
as  truly,  as  attractively,  as  Voices  of  the  Night  had  mir 
rored  the  restless  heart  of  youth.  Once  more  from  the 
little  volume  entitled  In  the  Harbor,  printed  after  the 
poet's  death,  the  tuneful,  familiar  notes  were  floated  back, 
while  Michael  Angelo  gravely  closed  the  dramas. 

"The  White  Mr.  Longfellow,"  as  Bjornson  called  him, 
is  the  surprise  of  honey  in  the  old  lion  of  Puritanism. 
"Out  of  the  strong  came  forth  sweetness."  A  professor 
in  his  library,  among  many  books  in  many  tongues,  he 
was,  nevertheless,  a  poet  of  stories  and  feelings,  so  simple 
that  the  little  children  love  him.  It  may  be  true  that  his 
imagination  was  moderate,  his  fancy  sometimes  forced 
and  artificial,  his  passion  decorously  pent  within  the 
meek  New  England  limits  of  trust  and  resignation.  Not 
withstanding  his  far  range  of  subject,  critics  have  styled 
him  the  Poet  of  the  Commonplace.  It  is  no  mean  title. 
To  lift  the  commonplace  into  the  bright  air  of  poetry 
is  to  confer  one  of  the  richest  of  boons  on  duR  humanity. 
As  Bryant  sublimed  our  thought  of  nature,  so  Longfellow 
hallowed  our  human  life  itself. 

III.  James  Russell  Lowell,  who  succeeded  Longfellow 
in  the  chair  of  Modern  Languages  at  Harvard,  is  often 
accounted  our  leading  man  of  letters.  His  critical 
essays,  his  public  addresses,  his  poetical  satires,  his  odes 
and  other  lyrics,  wide  as  is  the  range  they  cover,  do 


148  AMERICAN   LITERATURE  CHAP. 

not  exhaust  the  list  of  his  services.  In  proportion  as  he 
quickened  the  national  consciousness  and  purified  the 
national  ideal,  he  furthered  American  literature  by  enrich 
ing  American  life.  Of  his  direct  contribution,  only  the 
poetry  will  be  considered  in  the  present  chapter. 

He  was  the  scion  of  a  prosperous  and  scholarly  line. 
A  thriving  manufacturing  town  of  Massachusetts  and  a 
free  lectureship  of  Boston  bear  the  family  name  in  honor 
of  two  of  the  poet's  progenitors.  But  he  was  proud 
est  of  the  ancestor  who,  in  1820,  drafted  the  slavery- 
abolishing  clause  in  the  Constitution  of  the  old  Bay  State. 

The  son  of  an  upright  and  learned  clergyman  and  of  a 
Scotch-descended,  ballad-loving  mother,  with  a  library 
of  some  four  thousand  well-selected  volumes  for  his  boyish 
browsing,  a  graduate  of  Harvard,  a  reluctant  law-student, 
and  a  lawyer  whose  desk  was  strewn  with  verses,  he  was, 
in  a  sense,  committed  to  culture  from  his  cradle.  His 
youth  had  been  blithe  with  aspirations,  chiefly,  though  not 
wholly,  after  poetic  fame.  "  Here  I  am  in  my  garret," 
he  wrote  in  later  life,  from  Elmwood.  "  I  slept  here 
when  I  was  a  little  curly-headed  boy,  and  used  to  see 
visions  between  me  and  the  ceiling,  and  dream  the  so 
often  recurring  dream  of  having  the  earth  put  into  my 
hand  like  an  orange." 

But  when  Lowell  came  to  manhood,  the  air  of  New 
England  tingled  with  the  antislavery  reform,  and  the 
young  poet,  with  ready  ardor,  following  the  beck  of  the 
lady  whom  he  loved,  flung  himself  into  the  fray,  and  took 
the  blows  of  battle.  The  spear  of  Poe  marked  him  for  a 


IV  NATIONAL  ERA:   POETRY  149 

flashing  thrust :  "  Mr.  Lowell  is  one  of  the  most  rabid  of 
the  Abolition  fanatics ;  and  no  Southerner  who  does  not 
wish  to  be  insulted,  and  at  the  same  time  revolted  by  a 
bigotry  the  most  absolutely  blind  and  deaf,  should  ever 
touch  a  volume  by  this  author.  His  fanaticism  about  slav 
ery  is  a  mere  local  outbreak  of  the  same  innate  wrong- 
headedness  which,  if  he  owned  slaves,  would  manifest 
itself  in  atrocious  ill-treatment  of  them,  with  murder  of 
any  abolitionist  who  should  endeavor  to  set  them  free. 
A  fanatic  of  Mr.  L.'s  species  is  simply  a  fanatic  for  the 
sake  of  fanaticism,  and  must  be  a  fanatic  in  whatever  cir 
cumstance  you  place  him." 

There  was  a  grain  of  truth  in  this.  Lowell  was  poeti 
cal,  but,  even  more,  he  was  ethical.  The  fairest  vision 
could  not  withhold  him  when  there  was  a  call  for  valor 
to  the  fore.  At  the  outset,  he  cherished  brave  hopes  of 
uniting  the  functions  of  poet  and  reformer :  "  My 
calling  is  clear  to  me.  I  am  never  lifted  up  to  any  peak 
of  vision  —  and  moments  of  almost  fearless  illumination 
I  have  sometimes  —  but  that,  when  I  look  down  in  hope 
to  see  some  valley  of  the  Beautiful  Mountains,  I  behold 
nothing  but  blackened  ruins ;  and  the  moans  of  the 
down-trodden,  the  world  over  —  but  chiefly  here  in  our 
own  land  —  come  up  to  my  ear,  instead  of  the  happy  songs 
of  the  husbandmen,  reaping  and  binding  the  sheaves  of 
light ;  yet  these,  too,  I  hear  not  seldom.  Then  I  feel 
how  great  is  the  office  of  poet,  could  I  but  even  dare  to 
fill  it.  Then  it  seems  as  if  my  heart  would  break  in 
pouring  out  one  glorious  song  that  should  be  the  gospel 


I5O  AMERICAN   LITERATURE  CHAP. 

of  Reform,  full  of  consolation  and  strength  to  the  op 
pressed,  yet  falling  gently  and  restoringly  as  dew  on  the 
withered  youth-flowers  of  the  oppressor.  That  way  my 
madness  lies,  if  any." 

At  twenty-two,  Lowell  published  a  little  volume  of 
verses,  and  at  twenty-five,  in  the  year  of  his  marriage,  a 
second.  The  following  year  came  a  voice  from  the 
student  in  Conversations  on  Some  of  the  Old  Poets. 
Three  years  later  appeared  a  third  volume  of  verse  and, 
in  the  same  year,  The  Vision  of  Sir  Launfal,  written 
within  the  compass  of  forty-eight  happy  hours.  Still  on 
the  hither  side  of  thirty,  Lowell  discharged  that  quiver 
ful  of  arrows,  the  Fable  for  Critics,  and  during  the 
Mexican  War  there  sprang,  one  by  one,  from  the  indig 
nant  soul  of  the  satirist,  the  Biglow  Papers.  Here,  at 
last,  he  was  speaking  in  full  voice  as  poet-reformer.  But 
the  era  of  prose  was  at  hand.  At  thirty-two,  Lowell 
first  visited  Europe  and,  on  returning,  delivered  a  course 
of  lectures  on  English  poetry  before  the  Lowell  Institute. 
At  thirty-six,  after  two  years  more  of  European  study,  he 
took  the  Harvard  chair  which  Longfellow  had  resigned. 
To  the  cares  of  his  professorship,  he  added  the  editor 
ship  of  the  Atlantic  Monthly  and,  later,  of  the  North 
American  Review.  Culling  his  best  essays  from  these 
and  other  periodicals,  he  gradually  gathered  them  into 
volumes,  Fireside  Travels,  Among  My  Books,  and  My 
Study  Windows.  But  poet  and  reformer  were  not 
wholly  merged  in  the  professor,  the  editor,  the  man  of 
culture.  The  second  series  of  Biglow  Papers,  and  the 


iv  NATIONAL  ERA:   POETRY  151 

Harvard  Commemoration  Ode  glow  with  patriot  passion. 
At  fifty,  another  volume  of  collected  poems,  Under  the 
Willows,  was  issued,  and  a  year  later,  The  Cathedral. 
Lowell  was  abroad  for  two  years  in  these  honored  fifties, 
and  at  fifty-eight  entered  into  the  public  service  of 
his  country  as  Minister  to  Spain.  He  was  transferred 
in  1880  to  England,  where  he  represented  his  native 
land  with  unprecedented  geniality  and  grace.  Recalled 
by  Cleveland,  Lowell  printed  four  volumes  of  essays  and 
addresses,  and,  when  hard  on  seventy,  a  little  book  of 
poems,  Heartsease  and  Rue.  The  scant  verses  of  the 
last  three  years  were  published  together  after  his  death. 

Lowell's  earlier  poems,  fluent  and  pure-hearted,  show 
no  trace  of  his  characteristic  humor,  nor,  indeed,  much 
individuality  of  any  kind.  Unconscious  echoes  of 
Keats,  of  Hood,  of  Shelley,  haunt  their  cadences,  and  the 
Tennysonian  flavor  is  unmistakable.  Lowell's  first  ap 
pearance  as  a  satirist  and  wit  astonished  the  reviewers, 
and  Poe,  with  no  intention  of  being  amusing,  magisteri 
ally  remarked  that  the  author  of  the  Fable  for  Critics 
"  could  not  do  a  better  thing  than  to  take  the  advice  of 
those  who  mean  him  well,  in  spite  of  his  fanaticism,  and 
leave  prose,  with  satiric  verse,  to  those  who  are  better 
able  to  manage  them,  while  he  contents  himself  with  that 
class  of  poetry  for  which,  and  for  which  alone,  he  seems 
to  have  an  especial  vocation  —  the  poetry  of  sentiment." 

It  was  something  of  a  shock  to  Lowell  himself  to  find 
his  Biglow  Papers  captivating  that  public  which  his 
softer  strains  had  failed  to  move.  And  yet  here  and 


152  AMERICAN   LITERATURE  CHAP. 

there  a  lyric  had  fallen  from  his  pen  to  which  the 
heart  of  the  people  had  throbbed  response,  as  My 
Love,  A  Requiem,  The  Changeling,  She  Came  and  Went. 
And  now  and  then  he  had  succeeded  in  flinging  his 
ethical  enthusiasm  into  forceful  song,  most  notably  in 
The  Present  Crisis.  Sir  Launfal  found  large  audience. 
Lowell  made  June  dearer  to  New  England.  He  felt 
divinity  in  every  bud.  To  him  nature  was  fair  not  only 
in  itself,  but  as  something  "  for  the  gladness  of  heaven  to 
shine  through."  The  Fable  for  Critics  remains,  for  all 
its  rattling  fun,  a  marvel  of  sagacity.  While  Lowell  was 
a  baby  at  Elmwood,  Cooper  was  putting  pen  to  his  first 
story,  Irving  had  just  published  the  Sketch-Book,  Bryant 
was  a  grave  young  lawyer,  with  Thanatopsis  two  years 
old  in  print,  Emerson  was  a  dreamy  student  at  Harvard, 
Hawthorne,  in  preparation  for  Bowdoin,  was  writing 
Latin  exercises,  Whittier  was  a  barefoot  boy,  feeding  his 
father's  kine,  Holmes  and  Longfellow  were  bright  little 
lads,  the  well-nurtured  sons  of  cultivated  households,  and 
Poe,  at  school  in  Great  Britain,  was  a  lonely  and  way 
ward  child.  On  these  immediate  contemporaries  Lowell, 
in  half-frolicsome,  half-earnest  mood,  passed  keen  judg 
ments  almost  invariably  verified  by  time.  He  even 
recognized  his  own  peril,  how  ill  the  artist  in  him  was 
likely  to  fare  at  the  hands  of  the  moral  enthusiast : 

"  His  lyre  has  some  chords  that  would  ring  pretty  well, 
But  he'd  rather  by  half  make  a  drum  of  the  shell, 
And  rattle  away  till  he's  old  as  Methusalem, 
At  the  head  of  a  march  to  the  last  new  Jerusalem." 


iv  NATIONAL  ERA:    POETRY  153 

The  first  series  of  The  Biglow  Papers  voiced  the  pro 
test  of  the  American  conscience  against  the  Mexican 
War.  The  war  went  on,  but  Lowell  had  well  begun  a 
political  satire  unsurpassed  in  the  English  language  for 
its  blending  of  kindly  wit  and  noble  wrath.  He  had, 
furthermore,  made  the  Yankee  nasals  sing,  and  revealed 
the  sound,  straight  pith  of  the  gnarly  New  England 
character.  The  second  series,  called  forth  by  the  Civil 
War,  mingled  the  old  humor  with  a  beauty  and  pathos  to 
which  the  uncouth  dialect  seemed  no  more  a  hindrance 
than  the  Scotch  of  Burns.  The  Harvard  Commemora 
tion  Ode  was  the  solemn  chant  of  triumph  after  strife,  — 
a  chant  broken  with  sobs,  but  rising  to  "  a  peal  of  exulta 
tion."  In  Under  the  Willows  the  lifeworn  poet,  twice 
made  a  widower  and  thrice  bereaved  of  children,  strove 
to  sing,  as  in  youth,  the  jocund  joys  of  June,  but  the 
famous  lyrics  of  that  volume,  The  First  Snowfall,  After 
the  Burial,  The  Dead  House,  were  costly  with  heart 
break.  The  Cathedral,  marred  as  it  is  by  Lowell's 
cardinal  faults  of  carelessness,  discursiveness,  and  fre 
quent  lapses  in  taste,  pays  the  debt  of  thousands  of 
American  pilgrims  in  magnificent  praise  of  the  mediae 
val  minster  and  in  the  resultant  musings  on  Him 
who  recognizes  worship  in  "  the  climbing  instinct." 
This  ode  makes  it  evident,  however,  that  the  artist  had 
grown  presumptuous.  He  had  not  schooled  his  powers. 
The  world  of  talk  and  action  had  been  too  strong  for 
him.  He  had  refused  to  give  his  life  for  poetry,  but  the 
summits  of  art  may  be  won  by  nothing  less.  Hence 


154  AMERICAN   LITERATURE  CHAP. 

Lowell's  achievement  in  verse,  for  all  its  occasional 
splendor,  remains  irregular  and  incomplete.  When  he 
ceased  to  be  young,  he  ceased  to  be  primarily  a  poet. 
To  the  end  his  heart  had  "  song-birds  in  it,"  but  their 
flight  was  ever  rarer  and  less  high. 

IV.  Oliver  Wendell  Holmes  stands  third  in  the  trio  of 
Cambridge  scholar-poets.  Longfellow's  prose  is  of  slight 
value,  but  it  is  a  question  whether  Lowell's  essays  are 
not  more  precious  than  his  poems.  About  the  relative 
merit  of  Holmes's  prose  and  verse  there  is  no  question  at 
all.  Sorry  as  we  should  be  to  lose  the  sparkling  rhym- 
ster,  it  is  The  Autocrat  whom  we  positively  could  not 
spare.  The  family  tree  of  Holmes  boasted  the  name  of 
Anne  Bradstreet,  who  would  doubtless  have  upset  her 
inkhorn  in  dismay  to  foresee  the  poetic  levity  of  her 
great-great-great-great-grandson.  Holmes's  father,  a  Cam 
bridge  clergyman  of  antiquarian  tastes,  came  of  a  sturdy 
Connecticut  stock.  The  poet's  mother,  brightest  and 
most  sociable  of  little  women,  was  of  Dutch  descent. 
Thus  belonging,  as  his  own  wit  phrased  it,  to  "  the  Brah 
min  caste  of  New  England  "  and  born,  at  Cambridge, 
within  sight  of  the  gilded  dome  of  the  Boston  statehouse, 
"the  Hub  of  the  solar  system,"  the  poet  was  bred  as 
became  such  privileges  of  race  and  residence.  He  went 
to  the  Cambridgeport  Academy,  with  Margaret  Fuller 
and  the  younger  Richard  Henry  Dana.  He  frequented 
the  Athenaeum  Picture  Gallery  and  looked  "  through  the 
japanned  fishhorns  "  at  the  masterpieces  of  Copley  and 
Stuart,  Trumbull  and  Allston  and  West.  At  home  he 


IV  NATIONAL  ERA:   POETRY  155 

"  bumped  about  among  books  "  in  his  father's  library. 
Prepared  at  Phillips  Academy,  Andover,  Holmes  entered 
Harvard  at  sixteen.  He  was  duly  graduated  with  the 
"Boys  of  '29,"  whose  industrious  laureate  he  presently 
became.  To  Benjamin  Pierce,  renowned  as  mathema 
tician  and  astronomer,  and  James  Freeman  Clarke,  his 
"  dear  Saint  James,"  Holmes  penned  individual  tributes, 
while  at  one  annual  class-dinner  after  another  his  ready 
flow  of  verse  revived  College  memories,  proclaimed  class 
glories,  tenderly  lamented  the  dead,  and  merrily  hailed 
the  living,  as,  for  example,  his  reverend  fellow-poet, 

"  a  nice  youngster  of  excellent  pith,  — 
Fate  tried  to  conceal  him  by  naming  him  Smith  ; 
But  he  shouted  a  song  for  the  brave  and  the  free,  — 
Just  read  on  his  medal,  '  My  country,'  '  of  thee  ! '  " 

Holmes  had  tried  his  hand  at  verse  while  still  a  boy 
at  Phillips.  At  Harvard  he  won  undergraduate  renown 
by  his  waggish  contributions  to  The  Collegian.  He  first 
came  fairly  before  the  public  with  a  ringing  lyric,  Old 
Ironsides,  printed  in  the  Boston  Advertiser  the  year  after 
his  graduation.  This  impetuous  song  preserved  the  fa 
mous  frigate  "  Constitution "  for  half  a  century  more. 
The  young  poet  was  then  flirting  with  the  law,  but  jilted 
it  for  medicine.  After  several  years  of  study  in  Boston 
and  Paris,  he  took  his  degree  from  the  Harvard  Medical 
School.  In  this  same  year,  1836,  he  published  a  thin 
volume  of  verse,  containing,  with  other  lyrics  of  less  note, 
The  September  Gale,  My  Aunt,  and  The  Last  Leaf.  This 
third  poem  is  rich  in  that  tenderest  pathos  where  the  smile 


156  AMERICAN   LITERATURE  CHAP. 

and  the  tear  come  together,  but  the  most  of  Holmes's 
verses  were  so  jocund  that  he  used  to  claim  they  hurt 
his  career  as  a  physician. 

"  Besides  —  my   prospects  —  don't   you   know   that  people   won't 

employ 

A  man  that  wrongs  his  manliness  by  laughing  like  a  boy? 
And  suspect  the  azure  blossom  that  unfolds  upon  a  shoot, 
As  if  wisdom's  old  potato  could  not  flourish  at  its  root?" 

The  dangerously  gay  young  doctor,  who  had  announced 
that  the  smallest  fevers  would  be  gratefully  received,  gave 
up  his  practice  to  take  the  chair  of  anatomy  and  physi 
ology  at  Dartmouth,  but  after  two  years  at  Hanover, 
Boston  drew  him  back.  He  married  and  made  his 
home  in  the  pleasant  Puritan  city  from  which  he  was 
to  stray  no  more.  In  1848  he  joined  the  faculty  of 
the  Harvard  Medical  School,  occupying,  he  liked  to 
say,  not  a  chair,  but  a  whole  settee.  That  institution 
has  largely  increased  its  corps  of  instruction  since  Holmes 
first  brought  it  his  brilliant  services,  but,  as  he  roguishly 
remarked,  "  it  is  not  always  the  insect  with  the  most  legs 
that  goes  the  fastest."  Here  for  thirty-five  years  he  pur 
sued  his  chosen  subject  with  high  distinction,  while  in 
the  lecture-room  the  sprightly,  clever  little  gentleman 
was  the  delight  of  a  generation  of  trooping  classes.  Not 
until  he  had  exceeded  by  three  years  the  allotted  term 
of  human  life  did  he  withdraw  from  the  active  duties  of 
his  professorship.  Yet  he  lived  on  to  the  age  of  eighty- 
five,  lived  on  after  friends  and  classmates,  after  Bryant, 
Longfellow,  Emerson,  Lowell,  Whittier,  after  his  be- 


IV  NATIONAL  ERA:   POETRY  157 

loved  wife,  only  daughter,  and  the  younger  of  his  two 
sons. 

"  Lonely,  how  lonely  !  is  the  snowy  peak  !  " 

But  the  last  leaf  on  the  tree  kept  its  dancing  motion  to 
the  end.  The  affections  of  the  people  centred  about 
their  kindly  mirth-maker  all  the  more  closely  as  the  rev 
erend  brotherhood  of  New  England  poets  grew  less  and 
less.  He  was  feasted  by  his  publishers  and  by  the  medi 
cal  profession,  he  was  welcomed  and  honored  across  the 
water,  his  birthdays  were  greeted  with  ever  warmer  con 
gratulations  from  far  and  near,  and,  when  the  news  of  his 
death  went  abroad,  it  was  like  the  tolling  of  a  bell.  With 
him  an  era  of  our  literature  had  passed  away. 

Until  1857  Holmes  had  been  known  as  a  humorous 
poet.  His  prose  consisted  of  medical  treatises.  He 
was  in  demand  as  a  Lyceum  lecturer  on  the  modest 
terms,  as  stated  by  himself,  of  "  fifteen  dollars  and 
expenses,  a  room  with  a  fire  in  it,  in  a  public  house, 
and  a  mattress  to  sleep  on,  —  not  a  feather-bed."  But 
with  the  establishment  of  the  Atlantic  Monthly  the 
versatile  Doctor  blossomed  out  into  a  prose  classic. 
The  Autocrat  at  the  Breakfast  Table,  The  Professor  at 
the  Breakfast  Table,  The  Poet  at  the  Breakfast  Table, 
Over  the  Tea- Cups,  stood  for  a  fresh  force  in  letters. 
The  discussion  of  these,  as  of  Holmes's  novels,  Elsie 
Venner,  The  Guardian  Angel,  A  Mortal  Antipathy, 
comes  later,  but  it  was  in  those  Atlantic  serials  that 
some  of  his  best  poems  first  appeared,  —  the  delectable 


.  -  - 


158  AMERICAN   LITERATURE  CHAP. 

One-Hoss  Shay,  for  example,  and  that  high-thoughted 
lyric,  best  beloved  by  its  author,  The  Chambered  Nau 
tilus.  Laughter  is  so  good  a  gift  to  mortals  that  we 
instinctively  associate  Holmes  with  such  twinkling  ab 
surdities  as  The  Height  of  the  Ridiculous  and  The 
Broomstick  Train,  but  Dorothy  Q.}  The  Voiceless, 
Union  and  Liberty,  Grandmother's  Story  of  Bunker 
Hill  Battle,  show  the  diversity  of  his  gifts.  Yet  such 
golden  grains  are  scattered  scantily  in  much  chaff. 
Nearly  half  his  verses  were  written  for  occasions, — 
dinners,  fairs,  funerals,  anything  under  the  sun  that 
meant  a  concourse  of  Americans. 

"  I'm  a  florist  in  verse,  and  what  would  people  say 
If  I  came  to  a  banquet  without  my  bouquet?" 

Writing  so  often  with  the  success  of  the  hour  in  view 
emphasized  Holmes'  tendency  to  be  neat,  telling,  effec 
tive,  at  the  expense  of  finer  values.  He  was  old  fash 
ioned,  too,  in  his  poetic  tastes,  liking  so  well  the  "  strong 
heroic  line  "  of  Dryden  and  Pope  that  the  "  staid  foot 
steps"  of  his  "square-toed  song"  never  deigned  to 
learn  the  lighter  measures  of  modern  lyric  verse.  His 
poems  are,  as  a  whole,  autobiographic  in  flavor,  per 
sonal,  almost  confidential,  —  recitations  still  inseparable 
from  the  memory  of  the  reciter,  from  the  nimble, 
fragile  little  figure,  the  old  face  bright  under  the  snowy 
hair  with  the  unextinguished  zest  for  life,  the  winning 
appeal  of  smile  and  voice,  the  frolic  and  the  pathos  that 
radiated  from  him  and  swayed  great  audiences  in  sym 
pathetic  waves.  "  A  fellow  of  infinite  jest  "  though  he 


Reproduced  by  permission  of  Houghton,  Mifflin  Si  Co., 
Publishers  of  Whittier's  Works. 


IV  NATIONAL  ERA:   POETRY  159 

was,  it  behooved  his  hearers  to  have  their  handkerchiefs 
out. 

V.  John  Greenleaf  Whittier.  —  In  this  Quaker  laureate 
of  Puritan  New  England,  this  man  of  peace  who  fanned 
the  flames  of  war,  this  singer  with  the  fresh  voice  of  a 
Burns  and  the  holy  heart  of  a  George  Herbert,  we 
have  to  face  certain  contradictions,  not  the  least  of 
which  is  that  a  Quaker  should  be  a  poet  at  all.  It  is  a 
silent  sect.  America  is  fortunate  in  that  two  of  its  de- 
voutest  members  here,  Woolman  and  Whittier,  have  been 
moved  to  utterance.  Whittier  stands  apart  from  the 
Harvard  professors,  as  he  stands  apart  from  the  Concord 
philosophers.  His  ancestry,  his  rearing,  his  tempera 
ment,  are  unique  in  our  poetic  annals. 

The  Whittier  immigrant,  English  born,  is  said  to  have 
been  of  Huguenot  descent.  He  was  something  of  a  giant, 
as  giants  go,  and,  even  when  Indian  troubles  were  thick 
est,  sufficed  for  his  own  defence  in  the  log-cabin  on  the 
Merrimac.  Of  peaceful  disposition,  he  appears  to  have 
been  well  inclined  toward  George  Fox,  but  not  himself  a 
member  of  the  new  Society  of  Friends.  Of  his  ten  chil 
dren,  Joseph,  the  youngest,  married  a  Quaker  wife  and 
retained  the  Haverhill  homestead.  His  descendants  ad 
hered  to  the  Society.  Of  his  nine  children,  Joseph, 
again  the  youngest,  married  a  Sarah  Greenleaf,  also  of 
Huguenot  origin.  Of  their  eleven  children,  John,  the 
father  of  our  poet,  won  a  bride  from  an  eminent  Quaker 
family  of  northern  New  Hampshire,  and  remained  on  the 
ancestral  farm.  Whittier,  then,  was  born  to  an  inheri- 


I6O  AMERICAN   LITERATURE  CHAP. 

tance  of  the  purest  religious  feeling.  When  his  faith  in 
God  and  his  love  for  man  bade  him  range  himself  beside 
the  champions  of  the  slave,  in  that  militant  line  with 
Garrison  and  Phillips  and  Sumner,  the  Huguenot  and 
Quaker  blood  in  his  veins  must  have  throbbed  re 
sponse. 

"  Where  now  with  pain  thou  treadest,  trod 
The  whitest  of  the  saints  of  God  ! 
To  show  thee  where  their  feet  were  set, 
The  light  which  led  them  shineth  yet." 

Bred  as  he  was  amid  the  fair  river  scenery  beloved  of 
his  fathers,  and  on  acres  which  their  spades  had  broken, 
his  youth  was  passed  in  a  simplicity  and  stillness  like 
that  of  the  meetings  of  the  Friends.  His  best  school 
ing  was  the  out-of-door  life  of  a  poor  farmer's  son.  No 
barefoot  boy  knew  more 

"  Of  the  wild  bee's  morning  chase, 
Of  the  wild-flower's  time  and  place, 
Flight  of  fowl  and  habitude 
Of  the  tenants  of  the  wood." 

Whittier  has  pictured  for  us  in  his  exquisite  idyl, 
Snowbound,  the  sequestered  farm-house  and  quiet  family 

circle, 

"The  dear  home-faces  whereupon 
That  fitful  firelight  paled  and  shone." 

Even  so  lonely,  so  walled  in  from  the  wisdom  of  the 
world  to  hearth-side  lore  of  Indians  and  witches,  wood 
craft  and  Quaker  saints,  was  that  pure  boyhood  of  his. 
When  the  harvesting  was  well  over,  he  would  make  the 


IV  NATIONAL   ERA:    POETRY  l6l 

most  of  the  winter  term  of  the  district  school.  For 
books  he  had  the  Bible  and  a  few  Journals  of  exemplary 
Friends,  and  at  fourteen  a  precious  volume  of  Burns 
came  into  his  hands.  It  fared  ill  that  day  with  the 
mowing.  A  few  years  later  he  visited  Boston,  in  home 
spun  coat  and  broadbrim,  and  brought  back  Shakes 
peare's  plays.  His  own  early  verses  were  crude  enough, 
but  his  mother  and  sisters  cherished  the  stiff  "  pieces  " 
on  William  Penn,  Benevolence,  and  The  Exile's  Depart 
ure,  metrical  exercises  which,  after  the  seven  cows  were 
milked,  the  rough-handed  lad  would  laboriously  write 
out  on  foolscap.  His  elder  sister, 

"  Impulsive,  earnest,  prompt  to  act 
And  make  the  generous  thought  a  fact," 

sent  the  last-mentioned,  signed  "W.,"  to  young  Garri 
son's  new  weekly,  the  Newburyport  Free  Press.  It  was 
a  glorious  moment  when  the  poet  of  nineteen,  mending 
a  stone  wall  with  his  father,  looked  up  as  the  postman 
passed  on  horseback,  caught  the  newspaper  tossed  over 
to  him,  and  opened  it  to  see  his  own  verses  glittering  in 
print.  A  second  poem  was  sent  and  published.  The 
vigorous  young  editor  drove  fourteen  miles  to  call  upon 
the  shy  ploughboy  and  urge  him  to  obtain  an  education. 
Quaker  distrust  of  culture  and  the  habitual  lack  of  money 
stood  in  the  way,  but  the  women  overcame  the  father's 
scruples,  and  Greenleaf,  as  he  was  called  at  home,  or 
Uncle  Toby,  as  his  schoolmates  nicknamed  him,  earned, 
by  cobbling  and  teaching,  his  fees  for  two  terms  at  the 
Haverhill  Academy.  This  was  the  extent  of  Whittier's 

M 


1 62  AMERICAN   LITERATURE  CHAP. 

schooling.  He  had  gained  some  local  repute  as  a 
writer,  however,  and  maintained  himself  for  a  few  years 
by  journalism  in  Boston,  Haverhill,  and  Hartford.  But 
in  1831,  the  year  in  which  Whittier  issued  a  little  volume 
of  sketches  in  prose  and  verse,  Garrison  established  The 
Liberator,  and  the  passionate  young  Quaker,  sacrificing 
political  ambitions  and  literary  dreams  to  the  rude  labor 
of  reform,  threw  himself  heart  and  soul  into  the  un 
popular  cause  of  Abolition. 

"  Better  than  self-indulgent  years 
The  outflung  heart  of  youth, 
Than  pleasant  songs  in  idle  ears 
The  tumult  of  the  truth." 

There  was  certainly  no  lack  of  tumult.  Garrison  was 
mobbed  in  Boston.  Whittier  was  stoned  in  Concord, 
New  Hampshire,  and  pelted  with  rotten  eggs  in  New- 
buryport.  In  Philadelphia,  where  he  tried  to  edit  an 
antislavery  paper,  Pennsylvania  Hall,  containing  his 
office,  was  sacked  and  burned  by  rioters.  But  much 
as  his  Haverhill  fellow-citizens  disliked  his  views  on  the 
negro  question,  they  twice  sent  him  to  the  Massachusetts 
Legislature,  while,  as  for  his  poetic  genius,  the  ardor  of 

strife, 

"  Making  his  rustic  reed  of  song 
A  weapon  in  the  war  with  wrong," 

touched  his  lips  with  fire.  He  served  Liberty  as  truly 
as  did  Milton,  but  at  no  such  heavy  cost.  Inspired 
by  generous  anger,  Whittier  wrote  as  he  had  never 
written  before.  The  Voices  of  Freedom  sounded  in 


IV  NATIONAL  ERA:   POETRY  163 

antislavery  journals  from  1833  to  1848.  Many  of  the 
stirring  lyrics  are  eloquence  rather  than  poetry,  the 
trumpet-calls  of  a  sentinel 

"  Watching  on  the  hills  of  Faith, 
Listening  what  the  spirit  saith 
Of  the  dim-seen  light  afar, 
Growing  like  a  nearing  star." 

The  blood-red  cloud  through  which  that  star  had  yet 
to  break  confused  sadly  the  ideals  of  this  stormy  son  of 
peace.  After  all,  he  was  of  the  Friends,  and  might  not 
resist  evil,  after  the  tragic  fashion  of  John  Brown,  with 
violence.  "  It  is  not  a  Christian  weapon,"  wrote  the  puz 
zled  Quaker  poet,  after  gazing  on  one  of  the  pikes  used 
in  that  desperate  raid.  Whittier  had  scathing  rebuke  for 
Webster  and  ringing  praise  for  Barbara  Frietchie,  but 
he  would  not,  though  his  heart  was  hot  within  him, 
sing  the  heroism  of  young  Colonel  Shaw,  whom  St. 
Gaudens  has  immortalized  in  bronze,  lest  his  words  "  give 
a  new  impetus  to  the  war."  Gail  Hamilton  stitched 
her  mischievous  comment  on  his  attitude  into  a  pair 
of  slippers,  which  he  liked  to  show,  with  a  humorous 
look,  to  his  friends.  On  each  slipper  was  embroidered 
a  bristling  American  eagle,  with  blazing  eyes,  and  claws 
full  of  thunderbolts,  —  all  worked  in  peaceful  drab. 

When  the  bursting  of  the  war-cloud  set  Whittier 
free  from  polemics,  he  found  himself  at  leisure  to  write 
more  fully  than  before  along  the  pastoral  and  narrative 
lines  native  to  his  genius.  Although  he  persisted  to  the 
end  in  turning  the  cold  Quaker  shoulder  to  art,  avoid- 


164  AMERICAN   LITERATURE  CHAP. 

ing  music  and  designating  statues  as  "graven  images/' 
he  learned  to  polish  and  enrich  his  poetry  until  in  the 
later  work  there  was  little  occasion  to  apologize  for 
"the  harshness  of  an  untaught  ear."  At  his  best,  he 
is  an  irresistible  balladist,  a  delightful  painter  of  the 
rustic  scenery  and  village  manners  that  he  knew  so 
well,  and  our  most  intimate  interpreter  of  the  religious 
life.  The  figures  of  his  melodious  tales  are  old-time 
Quakers  persecuted  for  their  witness,  a  young  Puritan 
mother,  a  poor  Indian  deacon,  hard-fortuned  maidens 
like  the  witch's  daughter  and  the  Papist  drudge,  a  plain 
man  who  did  his  duty,  like  Abraham  Davenport,  or  a 
modest  philanthropist,  like  Dr.  Howe,  —  heroes  not 
chosen  from  the  gay  ranks  of  chivalry  and  lists  of 
fame,  but  from  garret  and  prison  and  farm-house.  The 
virtue  dearest  to  Whittier  was  pity.  The  deeds  he 
loved  best  to  commemorate  were  deeds  of  mercy. 
In  nature,  too,  he  found,  not  that  lonely  majesty,  that 
austere  grandeur  which  Bryant  knew,  but  unfailing 
cheer  and  comfort. 

"  I  lean  my  heart  against  the  day 

To  feel  its  bland  caressing; 
I  will  not  let  it  pass  away 

Before  it  leaves  its  blessing." 

Whittier  was  a  true  observer,  in  simple,  farm-boy 
fashion.  The  day  had  not  come  when  poets  must  be 
scientists,  but  the  day  had  gone  when  a  Connecticut 
bard  could  write  of  "  Philomel  high  percht  upon  a 
thorn."  The  birds  that  sing  through  Whittier's  vol- 


IV  NATIONAL  ERA:    POETRY  165 

ume  are  oriole  and  veery,  "the  crested  bluejay,"  "the 
blackbird  in  the  corn,"  the  robins  in  the  orchard,  the 
night-thrush  calling  to  prayer.  Well-nigh  perfect  are 
his  pictures  of  characteristic  New  England  scenes, — 
the  little  school-house  among  the  sumach  and  blackberry 
vines,  the  straggling  riverside  street  of  the  "stranded 
village,"  the  grass-grown  burying-ground  within  its 
"  winding  wall  of  mossy  stone," 

"  And  the  old  swallow-haunted  barns  — 
Brown-gabled,  long,  and  full  of  seams 
Through  which  the  moted  sunlight  streams, 
And  winds  blow  freshly  in,  to  shake 

The  red  plumes  of  the  roosted  cocks, 
And  the  loose  haymow's  scented  locks." 

Yet,  in  a  way,  Whittier  idealizes  nature.  "The  Van- 
ishers "  are  there.  The  "golden-tissued  weather"  is 
hushed  with  angel  presences.  "  Sunset  still  is  miracle." 
Everywhere  is  the  hint  of  divine  hope,  the  trace  of 
divine  love. 

Whittier's  religion  was,  indeed,  the  soul  of  his  genius. 
His  sternest  denunciations  of  wrong  sprang  from  his 
passion  for  goodness,  and  goodness,  as  the  Quaker 
poet  apprehended  it,  was  love.  Puritanism,  reared  on 
the  Hebrew  Scriptures,  might  emphasize  the  law,  but 
the  Inner  Light  witnessed  to  the  Gospel. 

"  Ye  see  the  curse  which  overbroods 

A  world  of  pain  and  loss; 
I  hear  our  Lord's  beatitudes 
And  prayer  upon  the  cross." 


1 66  AMERICAN   LITERATURE  CHAP. 

Pure  of  bigotry,  he  praised  the  life  of  love,  the  life  of 
self-denial,  wherever  he  beheld  it,  whether  in  a  Chan- 
ning,  a  Tauler,  or  a  Chalkley  Hall.  The  generosity  of 
Whittier's  elegies  equals  their  tenderness.  All  disciples 
of  Christ  were  of  the  poet's  church. 

"  Our  Friend,  our  Brother,  and  our  Lord, 

What  may  thy  service  be?  — 
Nor  name,  nor  form,  nor  ritual  word, 
But  simply  following  thee." 

All  problems  that  disquieted  him,  the  fate  of  "  the 
innumerable  dead,"  the  choice  of  evil,  the  loss  of  the 
beloved,  he  referred  to  the  "  star-crowned  "  angel,  Hope. 
Wistfully  as  he  dwelt  on  the  footsteps  of  the  Nazarene, 
he  found  Palestine  in  Massachusetts. 

"  The  heavens  are  glassed  in  Merrimac,  — 
What  more  could  Jordan  render  back?  " 

The  later  years  of  the  poet's  life  were  surrounded  by 
the  silence  of  deafness,  but  he  dwelt  simply  and  happily, 
among  those  who  loved  him,  in  his  pleasant  home  at 
Amesbury,  still  giving  forth  ballads  and  nature  lyrics, 
but  singing  most  often  and  ever  more  sweetly 

"  The  patience  of  immortal  love 
Outwearying  mortal  sin." 

VI.  Ralph  Waldo  Emerson.  —  So  far  our  New  Eng 
land  poets,  dear  though  they  are  to  us,  stand  by  general 
consent  below  the  second  rank  of  song.  Not  only  has 
America  not  known  a  Homer,  a  Dante,  a  Shakespeare, 
but  the  choir  of  contemporary  Europe  has  outvoiced 


IV  NATIONAL   ERA:    POETRY  l6/ 

her.  Bryant  is  less  than  Wordsworth,  Longfellow  does 
not  equal  the  greatest  of  his  German  models,  Holmes' 
flashes  of  fun  and  feeling,  the  flame  of  Lowell,  the 
hearthfire  glow  of  Whittier,  pale  before  the  names  of 
Goethe,  Hugo,  Shelley,  Keats,  Tennyson,  Browning. 
In  Emerson,  however,  we  have,  if  not  an  acknow 
ledged  master,  yet  a  poet  whose  lyricism  is  so  strange 
and  rare  as  to  defy  the  critics.  They  can  com 
pare  him  to  nobody,  measure  him  by  nothing,  and  are 
sometimes  driven  by  sheer  perplexity  to  pronounce  him 
not  a  poet  at  all.  They  accuse  him,  justly  enough,  of 
abstract  themes,  irregular  rhymes  and  rhythms,  bewil 
dering  passages  and  unearthly  ecstasies,  a  passion  too 
"  thin-piercing."  Yet  many  readers  find  a  unique  and 
unwithering  charm  in  his  ethereal  notes.  It  seems  to 
such  that  here,  as  nowhere  else  in  American  poetry,  may 
be  felt  the  thrill  of  a  spiritual  secret,  a  whisper  from 

beyond. 

"  Sometimes  the  airy  synod  bends, 
And  the  mighty  choir  descends, 
And  the  brains  of  men  thenceforth, 
In  crowded  and  in  still  resorts, 
Teem  with  unwonted  thoughts. 
****** 
Beauty  of  a  richer  vein, 
Graces  of  a  subtler  strain, 
Unto  men  these  moonmen  lend, 
And  our  shrinking  sky  extend." 

The  story  of  Emerson's  life  is  bare  of  outward 
romance.  He  was  born  in  Boston,  "  within  a  lutestring 
of  the  birthplace  of  Benjamin  Franklin."  The  first 


1 68  AMERICAN   LITERATURE  CHAP. 

American  Emerson  had  been  a  baker,  but  he  fathered 
a  line  of  preachers.  One  of  these  built  the  famous  Old 
Manse  of  Concord,  where  he  was  living,  a  fearless  young 
patriot,  at  the  time  of  the  British  raid,  and  whence  he 
went  forth,  never  to  return,  for  service  as  chaplain  in  the 
Revolutionary  army.  He  had  literary  tastes,  which  re 
appeared  in  his  son,  the  Rev.  William  Emerson,  whom 
the  opening  of  the  century  found  established  as  pastor 
of  the  First  Church  in  Boston,  although  his  longing  was  for 
a  church  without  a  creed.  "  Five  rosy  boys  "  adorned 
the  modest  parsonage,  but  the  father's  premature  death 
brought  upon  their  youth  privations  and  hardships, 
which,  though  gallantly  borne,  were  too  heavy  for  con 
stitutions  naturally  frail.  Edward  and  Charles,  the 
"  strong,  star- bright  companions "  of  Ralph  Waldo's 
early  years,  gave  promise  hardly  less  brilliant  than  his 
own.  It  was  a  wonderful  trio. 

"  We  had  eaten  fairy  fruit, 
We  were  quick  from  head  to  foot, 
All  the  forms  we  looked  on  shone 
As  with  diamond  dews  thereon." 

But  both  Edward  and  Charles  died  of  consumption  be 
fore  reaching  the  age  of  thirty,  leaving  for  the  survivor 
a  lasting  shadow  of  loss  upon  the  Concord  meadows 
where  the  lads  had  kept  their  "Carnival  of  Time" 
together. 

"  I  touch  this  flower  of  silken  leaf, 

Which  once  our  childhood  knew; 
Its  soft  leaves  wound  me  with  a  grief 
Whose  balsam  never  grew." 


iv  NATIONAL  ERA:   POETRY  169 

Each  brother  in  turn  taught  school  to  help  the  next 
younger  through  college.  The  years  at  Harvard  which 
William,  the  eldest  and  most  careworn,  thus  made  possi 
ble  for  Waldo  were  years  in  which  Emerson's  indepen 
dence  of  thought  had  already  begun  to  manifest  itself. 
"  He  seemed,"  said  an  observer,  "  to  dwell  apart,  as  if  in 
a  tower,  from  which  he  looked  upon  everything  from  a 
loophole  of  his  own."  Graduated  at  eighteen,  he  made 
trial,  for  some  dozen  years,  of  the  trodden  ways  of  the 
world.  He  taught  a  little,  preached  a  little,  travelled  a 
little,  but  the  rituals  and  the  rewards  of  other  men  were 
not  for  him.  He  withdrew  from  the  ministry  and 
settled  at  Concord,  hoping  to  make  a  modest  livelihood 
by  writing  and  lecturing.  "  Steady,  steady,"  he  said. 
"  I  am  convinced  that  if  a  man  will  be  a  true  scholar, 
he  shall  have  perfect  freedom.  .  .  .  Society  has  no 
bribe  for  me ;  neither  in  politics,  nor  church,  nor  col 
lege,  nor  city.  My  resources  are  far  from  exhausted. 
If  they  will  not  hear  me  lecture,  I  shall  have  leisure  for 
my  book,  which  wants  me.  Besides,  it  is  a  universal 
maxim,  worthy  ofg  all  acceptation,  that  a  man  may  have 
that  allowance  which  he  takes.  Take  your  place  and 
the  attitude  to  which  you  see  your  unquestionable  right, 
and  all  men  acquiesce." 

Of  Emerson  as  Transcendental  philosopher,  proclaim 
ing  on  scores  of  Lyceum  platforms  and  publishing  in 
successive  volumes  of  essays  a  mystic  idealism  that 
made  the  elders  doubt  his  sanity  and  the  "  nigh-starv 
ing  "  youth  of  New  England  hang  with  rapturous  devo- 


I7O  AMERICAN   LITERATURE  CHAP. 

tion  on  his  words,  a  later  chapter  treats.  Emerson  the 
poet  had  the  same  message  to  give,  but  gave  it  in  music, 
—  often  a  broken  music,  to  be  sure,  but  at  its  best  as 
sweet  and  wild  as  the  voices  of  the  woodland  which  he 
loved.  Weary  of  the  "gray  dreams"  of  books,  his 
library  was  the  sylvan  country  about  Concord. 

"  Knowledge  this  man  prizes  best 
Seems  fantastic  to  the  rest; 
Pondering  shadows,  colors,  clouds, 
Grass-buds  and  caterpillar  shrouds, 
Boughs  on  which  the  wild  bees  settle, 
Tints  that  spot  the  violet's  petal, 
Why  Nature  loves  the  number  five, 
And  why  the  star-form  she  repeats : 
Lover  of  all  things  alive, 
Wonderer  at  all  he  meets, 
Wonderer  chiefly  at  himself, 
Who  can  tell  him  what  he  is? 
Or  how  meet  in  human  elf 
Coming  and  past  eternities?" 

How  well  Emerson  knew  the  alphabet  of  Nature,  her 
flowers,  trees,  and  birds,  poems  such  as  Each  and  All, 
The  Rhodora,  The  Humble-Bee,  The  Titmouse,  The 
Snow-Storm,  April,  May-Day,  bear  witness;  but  the 
word  which  these  fair  letters  fashioned  for  him  was  ever 
God.  Over  this  wildwood  rambler 

"  soared  the  eternal  sky 
Full  of  light  and  of  deity." 

Swiftly  appropriating  the  scientific  revelation  of  the  cen 
tury,  he  loved  to  trace  in  thought  all  that  miraculous  way 
from 


IV  NATIONAL  ERA:   POETRY  I /I 

"  the  ancient  periods 
Which  the  brooding  soul  surveys, 
Or  ever  the  wild  Time  coined  itself 
Into  calendar  months  and  days," 

on  through  the  majestic  aeons,  while 

"  the  world  was  built  in  order 
And  the  atoms  march  in  tune." 

Dwelling  thus  face  to  face  and  heart  to  heart  with  Nature, 
Emerson  grew  in  gladness,  serenity,  and  purity  more  akin 
to  her  than  to  the  tragic  race  of  men. 

"  Whoso  walks  in  solitude 
And  inhabiteth  the  wood, 
Choosing  light,  wave,  rock,  and  bird, 
Before  the  money-loving  herd, 
Into  that  forester  shall  pass, 
From  these  companions,  power  and  grace. 
Clean  shall  he  be,  without,  within, 
From  the  old  adhering  sin." 

Hardship,  sorrow,  and,  at  last,  mental  disease  did  their 
best  to  bend  and  break  him  to  the  mortal  mood ;  but 
still  he  walked  erect.  He  took  his  poverty  blithely,  even 
proudly. 

"  God  fills  the  scrip  and  canister, 
Sin  piles  the  loaded  board." 

The  deaths  of  his  brothers,  of  the  bride  of  his  youth, 
and,  above  all,  of  his  little  Waldo,  his  "  Morning  Star," 
shook  but  could  not  shatter  Emerson's  noble  joy  in  the 
gift  of  life.  "Thou  must  mount  for  love,"  he  had  writ 
ten.  So  he  bore  his  wounds  for  healing  to  that  large, 
pure  ether  where  he  breathed  most  naturally.  "  In  the 


1/2  AMERICAN   LITERATURE  CHAP. 

actual  world  —  the  painful  kingdom  of  time  and  place  — 
dwell  care  and  canker  and  fear.  With  thought,  with  the 
ideal,  is  immortal  hilarity,  the  rose  of  joy ;  round  it  all 
the  Muses  sing ;  but  grief  cleaves  to  names  and  persons, 
and  the  partial  interests  of  to-day  and  yesterday." 

Not  even  the  slow  decay  of  his  faculties  marred  the 
old  man's  gentle  dignity,  and  the  goal  was  met  as  tran 
quilly  as  the  path  had  been  pursued. 

"  When  frail  Nature  can  no  more, 
Then  the  Spirit  strikes  the  hour : 
My  servant  Death,  with  solving  rite, 
Pours  finite  into  infinite." 

"  Turn  the  key  and  bolt  the  door, 
Sweet  is  death  forevermore." 

Perhaps  the  prime  value  of  Emerson's  poetry  for  young 
readers  is  the  elevation  of  spirit  it  imparts.  His  concep 
tion  of  the  poet's  art  and  mission,  as  set  forth  in  the  two 
parts  of  Merlin,  in  Bacchus  and  Saadi,  may  baffle  unac 
customed  students,  who  may  also  fail  to  apprehend  the 
full  thought-burden  of  The  Sphinx,  The  Problem,  Uriel, 
Woodnotes,  Monadnoc,  Brahma,  the  Ode  to  Beauty,  the 
three-fold  poem  on  Love.  The  autobiographical  lyrics, 
especially  the  impassioned  beauty  of  the  Threnody  and 
the  pathetic  sweetness  of  the  Dirge,  are  more  acces 
sible,  but  after  the  nature  poems  and  after  such  patriotic 
contributions  to  public  festivals  as  the  Concord  Hymn, 
Emerson  is  most  readily  approached  through  such 
quatrains,  chance  lines  and  fragments  as  flash  out  upon 


IV  NATIONAL  ERA:   POETRY 

the  individual  seeker.  He  longed  for  a  grander  gen 
eration, 

"  men  of  mould, 
Well  embodied,  well  ensouled," 

yet  even  as  we  are  Emerson  thought  nobly  of  humanity, 
for  he  had  faith  in  the  divine  energy  that  enters 

"  Into  all  our  human  plight, 
The  soul's  pilgrimage  and  flight; 
In  city  or  in  solitude, 
Step  by  step,  lifts  bad  to  good, 
Without  halting,  without  rest, 
Lifting  Better  up  to  Best." 

VII.  Other  New  England  Poets.  —  Although  her  patri 
archs  of  song  have  fallen,  New  England  is  not  yet  without 
a  minstrel.  In  THOMAS  BAILEY  ALDRICH  she  possesses  an 

"  Enamored  architect  of  airy  rhyme." 

A  native  of  Portsmouth,  New  Hampshire,  the  delightful 
"  Rivermouth  "  of  Tom  Bailey's  Bad  Boyhood,  he  became 
at  sixteen  clerk  in  a  New  York  business  house.  A  poet 
born,  he  soon  broke  away  from  the  counting-room  to  take 
such  successive  chances  as  offered  in  proof-correction, 
manuscript-reading,  and  journalism.  Taylor,  Stoddard, 
and  Stedman  had  gathered  about  them  a  little  circle  of 
enthusiasts,  in  whose  happy  atmosphere  the  lyric  genius 
of  Aldrich  swiftly  came  to  blossom.  These  Bohemian 
years  were  his  poetic  springtide,  sweet  with  a  delicate 
and  tender  music. 

"  A  man  should  live  in  a  garret  aloof, 

And  have  few  friends,  and  go  poorly  clad, 


1/4  AMERICAN   LITERATURE  CHAP. 

With  an  old  hat  stopping  the  chink  in  the  roof, 
To  keep  the  Goddess  constant  and  glad. 


Wretched  enough  was  I  sometimes, 

Pinched,  and  harassed  with  vain  desires; 

But  thicker  than  clover  sprung  the  rhymes 
As  I  dwelt  like  a  sparrow  among  the  spires." 

Fame  was  not  long  in  finding  him.  His  youthful  Bal 
lad  of  Babie  Bell  made  the  public  cry,  which  always 
pleases  the  public  mightily,  and  in  process  of  time  his 
prose  Story  of  a  Bad  Boy  and  Marjorie  Daw  made  the 
public  laugh,  which  answers  quite  as  well.  Lovers  of 
poetry  looked  askance  on  his  three  so-called  novels, 
idyllic  tales  of  New  England  village  life,  Prudence  Pal 
frey,  The  Queen  of  Sheba,  The  Stillwater  Tragedy,  for, 
pleasant  reading  though  they  are,  they  are  not  worth 
their  cost  in  lyrics.  Yet  Aldrich  has  at  no  time  aban 
doned  his  master-craft  of  "  wondersmith,"  and  volumes 
daintily  entitled  Cloth  of  Gold,  flower  and  Thorn,  early 
placed  him  in  the  front  rank  of  living  American  poets. 
In  1865  he  became  a  resident  of  Boston,  where  for  sev 
eral  years  he  edited  Every  Saturday,  a  would-be  modern 
Spectator,  that  failed  for  lack  of  popular  support.  He 
afterwards  succeeded  Howells  in  the  charge  of  the 
Atlantic  Monthly,  retiring  after  nine  years  of  distin 
guished  service  to  keep  thenceforth  an  unbroken  tryst 
with  the  Muses. 

Aldrich's  fancy  haunts  the  far  East.     From  youth  he 
has  loved  to  dream  of  clustered  palms,  sandalwood  and 


iv  NATIONAL  ERA:   POETRY  1^5 

citron,  rich  bazaars,  mandolin  and  dulcimer,  gold  and 
porphyry,  "dusk  Sultanas,"  and 

"  the  woes 
Of  women  shut  in  dim  seraglios." 

Yet  however  voluptuous  the  theme,  such  is  the  poet's 
New  England  purity  that  the  exquisitely  cut  and  polished 
verses  are 

"  Wine-red  jewels  that  seem  to  hold 
Fire,  but  only  burn  with  cold." 

He  is  almost  as  mellifluous,  almost  as  light  of  touch, 
almost  as  deft  and  rare  and  sparkling,  as  his  chosen 
leader  in  lyricism,  Robert  Herrick,  and  without  Herrick's 
offences.  Both  are  at  their  best  when  at  their  briefest. 
Aldrich  has  essayed,  with  no  slight  measure  of  success, 
the  minor  epic  and  the  poetic  drama.  His  themes  for 
the  former  are  drawn  from  Judaic  legend  and  Eliza 
bethan  romance,  for  the  latter  from  Spanish  story  and 
saint-lore  of  the  mediaeval  church.  But  it  is  his  lyrics, 
his  "cockle  shells  of  rhyme,"  that  bid  fair  to  keep  afloat 
the  longest. 

Aldrich  is  sometimes  called  artificial,  a  trifler  in  verse, 
a  voice  without  a  message.  It  is  true  that  he  has,  what 
our  elder  New  England  poets  too  often  lacked,  the 
artistic  conscience,  suffering  not  a  couplet  to  escape 
until  it  has  been  filed  to  the  last  refinement  of  phrase 
and  harmony;  true  that  he  seems  to  hold  the  aesthetic 
attitude  toward  life,  distilling  from  pain,  loss,  death,  the 
ghastly  and  the  horrible  a  honeydew  of  beauty ;  true  that 


AMERICAN   LITERATURE  CHAP. 

he  seldom  thrills  us  with  a  high-resounding  strain.  The 
man  of  the  world  is  much  in  evidence,  with  his  fastidious 
taste  and  piquant  turns  of  speech,  his  after-dinner  flavor 
of  wine  and  wit  and  surface  cynicism.  Loitering  on  the 
slopes  of  Parnassus,  Aldrich  has  plucked  the  spicy  laurels 
of  society  verse.  All  this  puts  him  in  line  with  the  ma 
jority  of  our  present  painters,  sculptors,  architects,  in 
whom  the  rigorous  devotion  to  technique  is  more  ap 
parent  than  the  control  of  great  conviction  or  idea.  It 
marks  him  as  the  son  of  our  latter-day  New  England, 
where  Puritanism  no  longer  traces 

"  a  path 

As  bleached  as  moonlight,  with  the  shadow  of  leaves 
Stamped  black  upon  it." 

Born  too  late  for  the  absolute  faith  of  the  forefathers, 
the  raptures  of  the  Transcendentalists,  Aldrich  has  not 
found  a  crusade  to  sing.  Yet  the  heroic  note  occasion 
ally  leaps  forth.  Memories  of  the  war, 

"The  sorrowful,  splendid  Past, 
With  its  glory  and  its  woe," 

still  strike  from  him  the  passionate  lament,  the  cry  of 
nobler  longing. 

The  spiritual  element  missed  in  Aldrich  forms  the 
central  value  of  the  poetry  of  EDWARD  ROWLAND  SILL. 
Though  born  in  Connecticut  and  a  graduate  of  Yale, 
his  career  as  professor  of  English  Literature  in  the  Uni 
versity  of  California  has  tended  to  associate  his  memory 
with  the  Pacific  coast.  His  death  was  untimely,  but 


IV  NATIONAL  ERA:   POETRY 


the  imprint  of  that  soul  "  serene  and  clear  "  remains 
upon  the  two  little  volumes  which  hold  his  collected 
poems.  The  high-thoughted  Venus  of  Milo  and  sweet- 
hearted  Field  Notes  have  many  lovers,  while  The  FooPs 
Prayer  is  known  throughout  the  land.  His  lyric  titles 
are  in  themselves  suggestive  of  the  earnest  tenor  of  his 
verse,  —  Life,  Faith,  Opportunity,  The  Invisible,  Peace, 
The  Reformer,  Service.  Columbia,  too,  has  a  poetic 
professor  of  New  England  origin  in  GEORGE  E.  WOOD- 
BERRY,  whose  educational  and  editorial  labors,  admi 
rably  performed,  leave  him  too  little  leisure  for  his  art. 
His  threnody,  The  North  Shore  Watch,  has  elevation 
and  literary  quality  ;  My  Country  attests  an  enthusiastic 
patriotism  ;  but  his  songs  are  lighter-  winged  than  ode  or 
elegy  and,  like  the  haunting  cadences  of  his  Anecdotes 
of  Siena,  predict  a  popular  favor  not  yet  won.  THOMAS 
WILLIAM  PARSONS,  a  Dante  student  of  renown,  he  whom 
a  younger  poet,  Richard  Hovey,  styled  our  "  hermit 
thrush  of  singers,"  has  a  golden  quality  of  tone,  few 
though  his  life-  notes  were.  Any  poet  of  English  speech 
might  well  be  glad  to  have  written,  — 

"  There  is  a  city  builded  by  no  hand 

And  unapproachable  by  any  shore, 
And  unassailable  by  any  band 

Of  storming  soldiery  forevermore." 

Precious,  too,  is  the  handful  of  sonnets  bequeathed  to 
those  "who  live  in  the  spirit"  by  JONES  VERY,  the  poet 
of  the  Transcendentalists.  Although  in  him  religious  ex 
hilaration  may  have  passed  at  times  the  bounds  of  sanity, 


1/8  AMERICAN   LITERATURE  CHAP. 

Emerson  honored  "  our  brave  saint,"  and,  while  louder 
voices  are  passing  into  silence,  Very's  mystic  oracle  still 
holds  an  "audience  fit,  though  few."  Our  singer  of  the 
sea  is  CELIA  THAXTER.  From  a  lonely  lighthouse  on  the 
Isles  of  Shoals  she  learned,  in  girlhood,  to  love  foaming 
breaker  and  wheeling  gull  till  it  grew  her  vital  need 

"  To  feel  the  wind,  sea-scented,  on  the  cheek, 
To  catch  the  sound  of  dusky,  flapping  sail. " 

Essential  charm  of  womanhood,  frank,  generous,  passion 
ate,  clings  to  the  poems  of  HELEN  HUNT  JACKSON.  The 
daughter  of  an  Amherst  professor,  she  poured  forth  in 
song  the  heart-break  and  the  healing  of  her  widowed 
youth.  The  new  interests  of  the  new  life  that  came  to 
her  beneath  the  majestic  beauty  of  the  Rockies  are 
largely  expressed  in  prose,  —  in  her  burning  pleas  for  the 
Indian,  A  Century  of  Dishonor  and  Ramona.  From 
another  Amherst  woman,  EMILY  DICKINSON,  an  elfish  re 
cluse  in  her  father's  house  and  garden,  have  been  wafted 
to  the  world  a  few  showers  of  sibylline  leaves  more  curi 
ous  than  anything  else  in  our  minor  poetry.  In  de 
mure  and  dashing  strokes  her  letters  vividly  paint  that 
typical  New  England  household,  the  father  "pure  and 
terrible,"  who  "never  played,"  the  mother  who  did  not 
"  care  for  thought,"  but,  as  life  went  on,  "  achieved  in 
sweetness  what  she  lost  in  strength,"  the  brother  and 
sister,  the  pets  and  flowers,  and  Irish  Maggie  "  warm  and 
wild  and  mighty."  Safely  cloistered  in  this  environment, 
the  shy  little  poet  loved  no  words  so  well  as  gallant  and 


IV  NATIONAL  ERA:   POETRY  1/9 

martial  and  posed  as  roguish  rebel  against  the  traditional 
solemnities  of  Puritanism. 

"  A  smile  suffused  Jehovah's  face; 

The  cherubim  withdrew; 
Grave  saints  stole  out  to  look  at  me, 
And  showed  their  dimples,  too. 

"  I  left  the  place  with  all  my  might,  — 

My  prayer  away  I  threw; 
i  The  quiet  ages  picked  it  up, 

And  Judgment  twinkled,  too." 

"The  air's  as  free  for  a  fly  as  for  an  eagle,"  and  there 
are  still  other  musicians  who  have  cheered  the  granite 
hills.  The  gracious  melodies  of  Lucy  Larcom,  the 
pleasant  balladry  of  Nora  Perry,  the  tender,  "hedge 
row  "  songs  of  "  Susan  Coolidge,"  sweeten  the  wayside  air. 
John  G.  Saxe,  whose  vogue  as  a  humorist  in  rhyme  once 
bade  fair  to  rival  that  of  Holmes,  has  had  his  day.  In 
place  of  The  Proud  Miss  MacBride  we  now  laugh  over 
the  Leetle  Yawcob  Strauss  of  Charles  Follen  Adams. 
The  invasion  from  green  Erin  has  brought  its  minstrels 
with  it.  John  Boyle  O'Reilly  and  James  Jeffrey  Roche, 
patriots  of  two  flags,  have  sent  forth  resonant  strains,  and 
Louise  Imogen  Guiney,  whose  father  fell  in  the  Union 
ranks,  strikes  her  Keltic  harp-strings  with  a  fearless 
buoyancy  and  force. 

VIII.  Edgar  Allan  Poe.  —  Our  poetic  Pleiades  had 
its  fallen  star.  Far  apart  from  the  tranquil  cluster  of 
Bryant,  Longfellow,  Lowell,  Holmes,  Whittier,  Emerson, 
holding  their  shining  courses  in  clear  heavenly  places, 


180  AMERICAN  LITERATURE  CHAP. 

rose  from  the  depths  of  shadow  what  Swinburne  has 
called  "  the  short  exquisite  music,  subtle  and  simple  and 
sombre  and  sweet,  of  Edgar  Poe." 

He  came  of  a  proud  Maryland  family.  His  grand 
father  was  a  Revolutionary  patriot,  honored  by  Lafayette. 
There  was  doubtless  fiery  blood  in  the  old  general,  who 
disowned  his  eldest  son  for  taking  to  the  stage  and 
marrying  a  player.  The  rash  young  Southerner  appears 
to  have  made  an  indifferent  actor,  but  his  wife  sustained 
for  three  years  an  engagement  as  leading  lady  in  the 
Federal  Street  Theatre  of  Boston.  In  the  Puritan  city, 
destined  to  be  one  of  his  pet  aversions,  the  poet,  their 
second  child,  was  born.  Two  years  later,  he  was  an 
orphan  and  already  an  object  of  charity.  Compassionate 
families  of  Richmond,  where  his  poor  mother  had  died, 
adopted  Edgar  and  his  baby  sister,  his  elder  brother 
being  sent  to  the  grandfather's  home  in  Baltimore. 

Under  the  roof  of  a  rich  tobacco-merchant,  Mr.  John 
Allan,  Poe's  childhood  knew  no  want,  unless  it  was  the 
all-important  want  of  wise  control.  His  foster-parents 
were  fond  of  the  bright  little  lad,  with  his  dark  curls, 
sweet  voice,  and  flashing  looks.  He  had  his  pony  and 
his  dogs,  his  dancing-lessons,  and,  at  dessert,  his  taste  of 
wine.  When  the  boy  was  six,  the  Allans  went  abroad, 
and  for  the  next  five  years  Edgar  kept  the  terms  in  the 
Manor  House  School,  near  London,  his  sensitive  nature 
retaining  an  indelible  impression  of  all  that  made  for 
beauty  and  mystery  in  his  new  surroundings.  "My 
earliest  recollections  of  a  school  life,"  he  wrote  in 


IV  NATIONAL  ERA:   POETRY  l8l 

William  Wilson,  "  are  connected  with  a  large,  rambling 
Elizabethan  house,  in  a  misty-looking  village  of  England, 
where  were  a  vast  number  of  gigantic  and  gnarled  trees, 
and  where  all  the  houses  were  excessively  ancient.  In 
truth,  it  was  a  dream-like  and  spirit-soothing  place,  that 
venerable  old  town.  At  this  moment,  in  fancy,  I  feel  the 
refreshing  chilliness  of  its  deeply-shadowed  avenues, 
inhale  the  fragrance  of  its  thousand  shrubberies,  and  thrill 
anew  with  undefinable  delight  at  the  deep  hollow  note  of 
the  church-bell,  breaking,  each  hour,  with  sullen  and  sud 
den  roar,  upon  the  stillness  of  the  dusky  atmosphere  in 
which  the  fretted  Gothic  steeple  lay  imbedded,  and  asleep." 
On  his  return  to  Richmond,  Poe  had  grown  to  a 
slight,  graceful,  active  youth,  of  imperious  temper,  with 
a  store  of  dreamy,  ideal  passion  which  leapt  into  a  white 
flame  of  adoration  for  the  mother  of  one  of  his  school 
mates. 

"  Lo  !  in  yon  brilliant  window  niche, 

How  statue-like  I  see  thee  stand, 

The  agate  lamp  within  thy  hand ! 

Ah,  Psyche,  from  the  regions  which 

Are  Holy  Land !  " 

After  a  few  months  of  gracious  friendship,  the  lady 
died,  and  night  after  night,  in  autumn  wind  and  rain,  the 
boy  of  fifteen  paid  lingering  visits  to  her  grave,  perhaps 
in  those  strange  vigils  giving  his  poetic  genius  its  peculiar 
bent,  for,  ever  after,  the  suggestion  of  a  beautiful 
woman's  untimely  death  thrilled  the  most  impassioned 
chord  of  his  being. 


1 82  AMERICAN   LITERATURE  CHAP. 

The  story  of  Poe's  manhood  is  brief  and  broken.  A 
year  at  the  University  of  Virginia  ended  with  honors  in 
Latin  and  French  and  with  gambling  debts  to  the  amount 
of  twenty-five  hundred  dollars.  From  the  counting-room 
in  which  Mr.  Allan  then  placed  him,  Poe  broke  away 
and  enlisted,  under  a  false  name,  in  the  United  States 
regular  army.  That  summer  the  young  private,  on  duty 
at  Fort  Independence  in  Boston  harbor,  published  anony 
mously  Tamerlane,  a  booklet  of  ten  poems.  These  are 
crude  and  feverish,  with  hints  in  measure  and  diction  of 
Shelley,  Moore,  and  even  Wordsworth,  but  in  their  pre 
vailing  tone  out-Byroning  Byron,  praising 

"  The  heirdom  of  a  kingly  mind 
And  a  proud  spirit,  which  hath  striven 
Triumphantly  with  human  kind," 

and  bewailing  the  fate  of  a  passionate  youth 

"  in  his  own  fire 
Wither'd  and  blasted." 

His  army  record  was  creditable,  and  Mr.  Allan,  whose 
wife  had  meanwhile  died,  relented  so  far  as  to  procure 
for  him  a  cadetship  in  West  Point.  Poe  was  more  inter 
ested  in  bringing  out  a  revised  edition  of  his  poems,  add 
ing  Al  Aaraaf,  a  confusion  of  English  echoes  in  which 
the  Coleridge  note  is  clear,  and  after  a  few  months  at  the 
Military  Academy,  he  grew  restive  and  rebellious.  Dis 
missed  in  disgrace,  penniless,  with  Mr.  Allan's  favor  lost 
beyond  retrieve,  Poe  made  his  home  in  Baltimore  with 
his  father's  widowed  sister,  Mrs.  Clemm,  marrying  her 
daughter  Virginia,  a  child  of  thirteen  summers. 


IV  NATIONAL  ERA:   POETRY  183 

"  It  was  many  and  many  a  year  ago, 

In  a  kingdom  by  the  sea, 
That  a  maiden  there  lived  whom  you  may  know 

By  the  name  of  Annabel  Lee  ; 
And  this  maiden  she  lived  with  no  other  thought 

Than  to  love  and  be  loved  by  me." 

He  entered  now  in  earnest  upon  the  struggle  for  a 
livelihood.  The  unique  excellence  of  his  prose  tales, 
whose  consideration  belongs  to  a  later  chapter,  gained 
him  his  first  foothold.  He  found  in  Richmond  an  edi 
torial  opening,  where  he  evinced  high  powers,  largely 
thwarted  by  caprice,  self-will,  and  his  fatal  inability  to 
resist  the  wine-cup.  He  drifted  from  Richmond  to 
New  York,  thence  to  Philadelphia  and  back  again 
to  New  York.  At  thirty-four,  he  was  widely  known  in 
America  as  an  unequalled  writer  of  short  stories,  a 
keen,  sometimes  venomous  critic,  and  an  editor  as  ca 
pable  as  he  was  irresponsible.  At  thirty-five  The  Raven 
suddenly  brought  him  into  popular  cry  as  a  poet.  But 
for  all  his  hard  work,  illustrious  achievement,  and  estab 
lished  reputation,  Poe  continued  wretchedly  poor.  The 
blame  must  be  laid  at  his  own  door,  although  the  odds 
of  rearing  and  temperament  were  cruelly  against  him. 
He  had  become  addicted  to  the  use  of  opium  as  well  as 
of  liquor,  his  word  could  not  be  trusted,  and  his  moods 
were  often  arrogant  and  bitter.  Like  the  restless  spirit 
of  Paradise  Lost,  he  roamed  with  sinister  looks  about 
the  literary  Eden  of  Boston  and  Cambridge,  his  jealous 
wrath  especially  directed  against  Longfellow,  who  with 
characteristic  gentleness  ascribed  the  severity  of  Poe's 


1 84  AMERICAN   LITERATURE  CHAP. 

criticisms  to  "  the  irritation  of  a  sensitive  nature  chafed 
by  some  indefinite  sense  of  wrong."  Another  of  the 
"  Frogpondians,"  Colonel  Higginson,  has  written  of 
Poe's  appearance  :  "  I  distinctly  recall  his  face,  with  its 
ample  forehead,  brilliant  eyes,  and  narrowness  of  nose 
and  chin,  an  essentially  ideal  face,  not  noble,  yet  any 
thing  but  coarse ;  with  the  look  of  over-sensitiveness 
which  when  uncontrolled  may  prove  more  debasing  than 
coarseness.  It  was  a  face  to  rivet  one's  attention  in 
any  crowd,  yet  a  face  that  no  one  would  feel  safe  in 
loving." 

Poe  seems,  nevertheless,  to  have  been  tender  with  his 
young  wife,  although  he  was  so  little  able  to  provide  for 
her  that,  in  her  last  illness,  an  appeal  for  charity  was 
made  in  their  behalf  through  the  public  press.  He  sur 
vived  her  but  three  years,  —  years  of  alternating  glooms 
and  frenzies,  of  criss-cross  courtships,  deeper  dissipations, 
and  fitful  reforms.  He  died  at  forty  in  a  Baltimore 
hospital  from  the  effects  of  a  debauch. 

Poe's  European  fame,  especially  in  France  and  Italy, 
outstrips  that  of  every  other  American  poet. 

"  None  sing  so  wildly  well 
As  the  angel  Israfel." 

His  artistic  influence,  transmitted  through  his  French 
translator  and  enthusiastic  disciple,  Charles  Baudelaire, 
a  closely  kindred  spirit,  is  potent  to-day  in  France  and 
Belgium  over  the  symbolists,  while  in  England  Swin 
burne  is  of  his  following.  Yet  Poe  was  the  channel, 
not  the  fountain,  of  the  new  poetic  current.  It  flowed 


IV  NATIONAL  ERA:   POETRY  185 

to  him  through  Coleridge  from  the  great  romantic  re 
vival  of  a  century  ago.  From  the  stress  laid  by  romanti 
cism  on  beauty  and  emotion  sprang  this  new  poetry, 
a  passionate  lyricism  knowing  no  law  but  the  beautiful. 
It  admits  no  point  of  contact  with  science  or  with  ethics. 
It  merely  strives  to  convey,  by  musical  impression  and 
dim,  music-born  images,  a  burden  of  feeling.  Cole 
ridge's  Kubla  Khan  communicates  a  dreamy  ecstasy, 
Poe's  Ulalume  his  favorite  mood  of  "  remorseful  passion 
for  the  irrecoverable  dead."  To  inquire  what  these 
poems  of  liquid  title-sound  may  mean  is  quite  beyond 
the  mark.  They  have  little  to  do  with  meanings. 
Poe,  who  denned  poetry  as  "  the  rhythmic  creation  of 
the  beautiful,"  declared :  "  Music  is  the  perfection  of 
the  soul  or  the  idea  of  poetry ;  the  vagueness  of  exalta 
tion  aroused  by  a  sweet  air  (which  should  be  indefinite 
and  never  too  strongly  suggestive)  is  precisely  what  we 
should  aim  at  in  poetry."  In  point  of  fact,  however,  the 
clear-cut  precision  of  Poe's  own  mind  made,  as  a  rule, 
the  intellectual  bearings  of  his  lyrics  plain. 

It  should  be  added,  in  justice  to  a  forgotten  bard  of 
Georgia,  that  Poe  seems  to  have  taken  the  hint  for  his 
characteristic  manner,  or,  at  least,  borrowed  many  of  his 
best  effects,  from  Dr.  Thomas  Holley  Chivers,  in  whose 
"  snatches  of  sweet  unsustained  song,"  Poe  confessed  to 
finding  "  an  indefinite  charm  of  sentiment  and  melody." 
The  themes  of  death  and  despair,  the  sad  and  resonant 
refrains,  as  "  nevermore,"  mellifluous  names  suggestive 
of  some  unearthly  grace,  as  "  Israfel  "  and  "  Isadore  "  — 


1 86  AMERICAN  LITERATURE  CHAP. 

this  last  becoming  with  Poe  "  Lenore,"  subtly  inter 
woven  rhythms,  sonorous  rhymes  that  beat  and  beat 
again  upon  the  ear,  the  repetitions  and  parallelisms  born 
of  excited  feeling,  are  lyrical  devices  all  to  be  found  in 
Chivers  before  they  appeared  in  Poe,  but  the  hand  that 
feebly  tuned  the  strings  yielded  place  to  a  hand  that 
swept  them  with  the  master-touch. 

IX.   Other  Southern  Poets.  —The  poetry  of  the  South, 
of  the 

"  land  of  balm  and  bloom, 
Blandest  airs  and  sweet  perfume, 
Where  the  jasmine's  golden  stars 
Glimmer  soft  through  emerald  bars, 
And  the  fragrant  orange  flowers 
Fall  to  earth  in  silver  showers," 

shows  as  a  whole  the  tendency,  preeminent  in  Poe,  to 
accentuate  the  elements  of  music  and  emotion.  The 
silvery  cadences  of  Father  Ryan,  rendering  mournful 
homage  to  The  Conquered  Banner,  or  attuned  to  Mass 
and  altar  bell,  are  so  dulcet  as  to  cloy.  The  Lost 
Cause  had  no  lack  of  laureates,  the  bugles  of  the  Gray 
answering  note  for  note  the  bugles  of  the  Blue.  The 
war-poems  of  Mrs.  Preston,  northern-born,  the  adopted 
daughter  of  Virginia,  are  antiphonal  with  the  war-poems 
of  Mrs.  Dorr,  southern-born,  the  adopted  daughter  of 
Vermont.  But  even  apart  from  the  passion  of  strife, 
the  poetic  impulse  of  the  South  has  consistently  shown 
itself  lyrical,  save  in  so  far  as  the  dramatic  sketches  and 
narrative  poems  of  Hayne  constitute  an  exception. 
The  ante-bellum  bards,  Edward  Coate  Pinkney  of  Mary- 


IV  NATIONAL  ERA:    POETRY  l8/ 

land,  Richard  Henry  Wilde  of  Georgia,  Philip  Pendle- 
ton  Cooke  of  Virginia,  belong  to  the  blithe  fellowship 
of  troubadours,  and  the  latest  voice  from  the  Old 
Dominion,  that  crisp-syllabled  voice  of  Father  Tabb,  is 
loyal  to  lyric  tradition. 

But  so  sad  have  been  the  fortunes  of  the  South  that 
her  poetic  genius  has  found  as  yet  only  an  imperfect 
utterance.  The  storm  of  the  Rebellion,  with  the  winter 
of  want  and  woe  that  followed,  stifled  many  a  bird- 
note.  It  was  fitting  that  a  southern-born  poet,  Christo 
pher  Pearse  C ranch,  whom  Virginia  yielded  up  to 
Cambridge  and  to  Transcendentalism,  should  word  a 
lament  for  Broken  Wings. 

"  Ah  yes,  due  fame  for  all  who  have  achieved  ; 

And  yet  a  thought  for  those  who  died  too  young  — 
Their  green  fruit  dropped  —  their  visions  half  conceived  — 
Their  lays  unsung  !  " 

Men  whom  the  battle  spared  had  still  to  stand  "grim 
encounters  with  starvation."  Upon  the  three  chief  poets 
of  the  South,  since  Poe,  the  sorrows  of  the  ruined  Con 
federacy  pressed  with  crushing  force.  PAUL  HAMIL 
TON  HAYNE,  a  gentleman  of  South  Carolina,  his  house 
burned  in  the  bombardment  of  Charleston,  his  library 
scattered,  his  store  of  family  silver  lost,  started  life 
anew,  with  enfeebled  health,  in  a  shanty  among  the 
Georgia  pines.  Overcoming  a  thousand  obstacles,  the 
faithful  poet  "  beat  his  music  out,"  but  apart  from 
the  trumpet  tone  of  his  war-songs,  it  was  a  music  in  the 
minor  key.  Nature,  home -loves,  and  his  art  consoled  him 


1 88  AMERICAN   LITERATURE  CHAP. 

for  many  losses.  HENRY  TIMROD,  like  Hayne  a  native  of 
Charleston,  was,  like  Hayne,  in  his  early  prime  when 
"  the  blood-red  flower  of  war "  poisoned  his  hopes. 
His  business  and  belongings  vanished  in  the  burning 
of  Columbia,  as  Sherman  marched  to  the  sea,  and 
the  fugitive  lyrist,  with  his  wife  and  sister,  knew  the 
extremities  of  anxiety,  toil,  and  need.  His  health  gave 
way,  and  he  died  at  thirty-seven.  His  thin  volume 
has  many  lovers ;  for  if  his  muse  is  in  less  degree  than 

Hayne's 

"  A  serious  angel,  with  entranced  eyes 

Looking  to  far-off  and  celestial  things," 

she  has  a  rosier  flush  of  human  beauty. 

SIDNEY  LANIER,  bravest  of  the  brave  trio,  had  such 
force  of  genius  and  of  will  as  to  turn  his  tragedy  into 
triumph.  A  Georgian  by  birth,  he  was  a  youth  of 
nineteen,  fresh  from  his  college  course,  when,  at  the 
first  call,  he  sprang  to  arms.  Cheering  his  comrades 
by  his  magical  flute-playing,  he  fought  gayly  on,  through 
the  darkening  years,  until,  almost  at  the  end,  the 
fortunes  of  war  flung  him  into  Point  Lookout  prison. 
Tabb  tasted  with  him  those  sorry  hospitalities.  When 
Lanier,  foot-sore,  exhausted,  with  fatal  disease  fastened 
upon  his  lungs,  but  with  his  precious  flute  tucked  up 
the  shabby  gray  sleeve,  came  home  again,  he  had 
more  need  than  ever  of  his  soldier's  courage.  He 
taught,  served  as  hotel  clerk,  and  tempted  fortune, 
which  resisted  the  temptation,  with  a  transcript  of 
his  young  experiences,  Tiger  Lilies.  This  boyish 


Reproduced  from  the  fine  steel  plate  in  "The 
Library  of  American  Literature,"  by  permission 
of  the  publisher,  William  Evarts  Benjamin. 


iv  NATIONAL  ERA:    POETRY  189 

romance  shows,  like  Longfellow's  Hyperion,  the  close 
influence  of  Richter.  Disordered  as  it  appears,  it  is  full 
of  all  that  went  to  the  poetic  making  of  Lanier,  —  the 
woods,  the  war,  music,  and  love.  A  blissful  mar 
riage  and  the  joy  of  children  helped  him  endure  the 
law,  which  he  studied  and  practised  with  his  father, 
striving  for  several  years  to  effect  some  compromise 
between  that  and  his  art.  But  the  certainty,  sealed  by 
the  ever-recurring  cough  and  hemorrhage,  that  his 
time  was  short,  nerved  him  to  the  resolve  to  live,  while 
live  he  could,  in  the  service  of  music  and  of  poetry. 
An  engagement  as  first  flute  for  the  Peabody  symphony 
concerts  in  Baltimore,  the  editing  of  old  hero-tales, 
lectures,  magazine  sketches  and  poems,  kept  the  pot 
on  the  hearth  boiling  and  the  fire  on  the  altar  burning 
until,  at  last,  two  years  before  his  death,  Lanier  was 
called  to  a  lectureship  on  English  literature  at  Johns 
Hopkins.  His  daring  studies  in  the  Science  of  English 
Verse  and  the  English  Novel  attest  his  rare  fitness 
for  this  prize,  hard-won  and  soon-relinquished.  He 
died  of  consumption  at  the  age  of  thirty-nine. 

Lanier's    theory   of  verse   is   in   accord   with   Poe's. 
Beauty  and  music  are  poetry's  all  in  all. 

"  Music  is  Love  in  search  of  a  word," 

and  lyricism  is  hardly  more  articulate.  But  Lanier 
longed  for  the  completest  intellectual  equipment  for  his 
work.  Poe,  he  said,  "  did  not  know  enough."  The 
Baltimore  flute-player  was  a  born  musician,  walking  in 


AMERICAN   LITERATURE  CHAP. 


an  enveloping  cloud  of  harmonies,  having  only  to  turn 
aside  from  the  noises  of  the  world  and  listen  to  become 
aware  of  an  unceasing  "  holy  song."  He  purposed 
the  creation  of  great  symphonies  written  in  a  new 
musical  notation  as  eagerly  as  he  planned  for  the  crea 
tion  of  great  poems  framed  in  accordance  with  new 
laws  of  verse.  What  with  his  intricate  endeavor  to 
bring  his  two  arts  into  close  technical  relation,  and 
his  thirst  to  compass  all  knowledge  and  acquire  all 
skill,  he  put  away  the  day  of  actual  performance  even 
farther  than  the  struggle  for  bread  had  already  thrust 
it.  The  most  liberal  span  of  life  would  have  been  too 
short  for  Sidney  Lanier,  and  the  life  that  he  wrested 
from  disease  and  death  was  but  a  splendid  fragment. 
Yet  his  poems  as  they  stand,  in  their  swift  surprises 
of  beauty,  their  secrets  of  sweet  sound,  their  "Faith 
that  smiles  immortally,"  rank  close  upon  the  best 
achievements  of  American  song.  The  Hymns  of  the 
Marshes,  The  Symphony,  The  Revenge  of  Hamish,  The 
Stirrup-  Cup,  Resurrection,  My  Springs,  A  Ballad  of  Trees 
and  the  Master,  are  worthy  even  of  their  poet's  hope. 

X.  Poetry  of  the  Middle  States.  —  The  poetic  product 
of  the  Middle  States  is  as  heterogeneous  as  their  origi 
nal  elements  of  population.  The  picturesque  figures 
of  FITZ-GREENE  HALLECK  and  JOSEPH  RODMAN  DRAKE 
lead  the  line  of  Knickerbocker  minstrels.  The  former 
is  remembered  for  his  spirited  Marco  Bozzaris,  the 
latter  for  his  blithe  impromptu  of  The  Culprit  Fay,  a 
fanciful  attempt  to  domesticate  the  fairies  in  the  high- 


IV  NATIONAL  ERA:   POETRY  IQI 

lands  of  the  Hudson,  and  his  enthusiastic  address  to 
The  American  Flag.  But  their  friendship,  which  dates 
from  1813,  when  Halleck,  a  New  Englander  of  twenty- 
three,  was  seeking  his  fortune  by  way  of  a  New  York 
business  house,  and  Drake,  five  years  his  junior,  a  native 
of  the  metropolis,  had  just  entered  upon  the  study  of 
the  law,  was  a  poem  in  itself.  It  began  on  a  September 
afternoon,  when,  on  a  trip  down  the  harbor,  Halleck 
remarked,  as  they  watched  the  skies  clearing  after  a 
shower,  that  it  would  be  heaven  to  "lounge  upon  the 
rainbow  and  read  Tom  Campbell,"  and  Drake's  impul 
sive  affection  leapt  forth  to  greet  a  kindred  spirit.  It 
ended,  in  its  visible  aspect,  on  another  September  after 
noon,  seven  years  later,  when  Halleck,  returning  from 
Drake's  burial,  said :  "  There  will  be  less  sunshine  for 
me  hereafter,  now  that  Joe  is  gone."  Less  poetry  there 
certainly  was.  During  their  seven  years  of  fellowship, 
they  had  written  together  the  Croaker  Papers,  light- 
hearted  skits  on  local  celebrities  of  the  day,  and  Halleck, 
stimulated  by  Drake's  more  ardent  inspiration,  had  done 
his  best  work,  slight  as  that  best  now  seems  to  be,  in 
satire  and  lyric.  His  elegiac  tribute  to  Drake,  touching 
for  its  manly  simplicity  and  sincerity,  reached  his  own 
high-water  mark  of  poetry. 

"  Green  be  the  turf  above  thee, 

Friend  of  my  better  days ! 
None  knew  thee  but  to  love  thee, 
None  named  thee  but  to  praise." 

Halleck  lived  on  for  nearly  half  a  century,  a  personage 


IQ2  AMERICAN   LITERATURE  CHAP. 

in  New  York  life,  with  which  he  became  thoroughly 
identified.  Enjoying  a  snug  business  berth  in  the  count 
ing-room  of  John  Jacob  Astor  and  the  highest  considera 
tion  among  men  of  letters,  he  developed  into  —  a 
delightful  dinner-guest.  His  robust,  almost  military 
nature,  with  its  spice  of  irony,  may  have  felt  out  of 
sympathy  with  the  austere  genius  of  Bryant,  on  the  one 
hand,  and  the  sentimentality  of  Willis,  on  the  other. 
The  poetic  influence  of  Willis  was  great  in  the  thirties 
and  earlier  forties,  and  the  New  York  Mirror,  edited  by 
him  in  conjunction  with  Morris,  fostered  a  fashionable 
taste  for  the  third-rate  English  poets  Moore  and  Hood, 
Leigh  Hunt  and  Mrs.  Hemans. 

Bryant  was  too  cold  and  Poe  too  egotistic  for  the 
forming  of  literary  coteries,  but  in  the  later  forties,  a 
decade  before  the  Atlantic  Monthly  had  begun  to  bind 
the  Boston  writers  together,  New  York,  too,  could  show 
a  group  of  poets.  The  nucleus  here  was  another  youth 
ful  friendship.  BAYARD  TAYLOR,  a  journalist  from  a 
Quaker  farm  in  Pennsylvania,  and  RICHARD  HENRY  STOD- 
DARD,  son  of  a  Massachusetts  sea-captain,  and  himself  a 
laborer  in  an  iron  foundry,  dreamed  the  poet's  dream 
together 

"  in  midnight  streets 

And  haunted  attics  flattered  by  the  chime 

Of  silver  words." 

Campbell's  spell  had  snapped.  Keats  and  Shelley 
were  the  new-arisen  stars.  Stoddard  claimed  spiritual 
kinship  with  the  former,  Taylor  with  the  latter,  and  each 


IV  NATIONAL  ERA:   POETRY  1 93 

proceeded  to  echo  the  music  of  his  chosen  master-singer. 
Shortly  GEORGE  HENRY  BOKER,  the  son  of  an  old  and 
wealthy  Philadelphia  family,  was  admitted  as  mate  of 
their  "  poetic  spring."  Surely  this  was  a  democratic 
brotherhood,  such  as  the  spirit  of  song  and  the  spirit  of 
liberty  best  love.  The  poor  artisan  looked  with  generous 
admiration  upon  his  dashing  comrades.  "  I  have  seen 
many  poets  in  my  time,"  he  wrote  long  after,  "  but  none 
that  fulfilled  my  ideal  like  the  young  Taylor  and  the 
young  Boker,  who  were  handsome,  manly  fellows,  with 
mobile  faces,  alert  eyes,  and  crowns  of  the  clustering 
ringlets  that  made  the  head  of  Byron  so  beautiful."  In 
the  outcome,  not  one  of  that  happy  "  trinity,"  as  they 
were  dubbed  by  a  contemporary  magazine,  has  alto 
gether  failed  nor  altogether  succeeded.  Taylor,  the  most 
ambitious  of  the  three,  swung  through  his  showy  career 
with  a  daring  energy  that  pitched  "  his  tent  on  many  a 
distant  field."  In  the  service  of  New  York  newspapers, 
mainly  The  Tribune,  he  became  the  pilgrim  of  the  globe, 
tramping  through  Europe,  roughing  it  in  California  with 
the  Forty-niners,  smoking  his  Persian  pipe  in.  cross- 
legged  ease  on  a  Damascus  roof,  sporting  with  a  leopard 
chained  to  a  fig  tree  in  fiery  Ethiopia,  riding  a  royal 
elephant  through  Lucknow,  looking  in  on  Hong  Kong 
and  the  Loo-Choo  Islands,  shivering  in  Lapland,  —  a 

man 

"  Whose  Arab  face  was  tanned 

By  tropic  sun  and  boreal  frost; 
So  travelled  there  was  scarce  a  land 

Or  people  left  him  to  exhaust." 
o 


1 94  AMERICAN   LITERATURE  CHAP. 

So  great  was  the  hold  taken  by  his  journeys  on  the 
American  imagination  that  fame  and  fortune  flowed  to 
his  feet.  But  the  master  of  "  towered  Cedar-croft  "  was 
still  the  terrible  toiler.  In  addition  to  his  travels, 
his  studies,  his  newspaper  "copy,"  and  his  popular 
lectures,  for  which  there  was  a  prodigious  demand,  he 
published,  in  his  working-tide  of  some  thirty-five  years, 
more  than  as  many  volumes.  The  list  includes  twelve 
entertaining  books  of  travel,  four  indifferent  novels  of 
New  York  and  Pennsylvania  life,  an  admirable  trans 
lation  of  Goethe's  Faust,  and  twelve  volumes  of  origi 
nal  poems.  Of  all  this  poetry  a  few  lyrics,  as  Autum 
nal  Dreams,  with  its  melodious  yearning,  the  Song  of 
the  Camp,  with  its  fortunate  conclusion,  The  Quaker 
Widow,  with  its  picture  of  quaint  simplicity,  and  the 
wildfire  rush  of  the  Bedouin  Song,  take  strong  hold  on 
immortality,  but  the  epics  and  dramas  which  were  to 
have  been  the  crowning  achievement  of  his  prime  came 
but  heavily  from  the  weary,  over-worked  pen.  With  all 
its  charm,  his  Norwegian  idyl,  Lars,  lags  far  behind  its 
inevitable  rival,  Evangeline. 

Taylor  died  at  fifty-three,  in  Germany,  at  the  outset 
of  his  public  service  as  United  States  Minister  to  the 
Court  of  Berlin.  The  body  was  brought  home  for 
burial,  and  Boker  and  Stoddard,  meeting  then  to  meet 
no  more,  rode  together  in  the  long  procession  that  at 
tended  the  world-wanderer  on  his  last  journey.  Boker 
had  given  his  young  manhood  to  the  study  of  Elizabethan 
poetry  and  to  the  writing  of  dramas  and  sonnets,  too 


IV  NATIONAL  ERA:   POETRY  195 

closely  modelled  after  Shakespeare  and  his  fellows,  but 
so  spirited,  so  pliant,  and  so  strong  as  to  deserve  more 
attention  than  they  have  ever  received.  Some  of  these 
dramas,  whose  themes  are  Spanish,  English,  and  Italian, 
were  acted  in  London  as  well  as  here,  but  the  stage 
conditions  were  disheartening.  "Theatricals  are  in  a 
fine  state  in  this  country,"  the  young  dramatist  said 
bitterly.  "  Every  inducement  is  offered  to  me  to  burn 
my  plays  as  fast  as  I  write  them."  The  war  turned 
Boker's  talents  into  a  new  channel.  The  important  ser 
vice  which  he  rendered  in  the  organization  and  conduct 
of  the  Union  League  of  Philadelphia  was  emphasized  by 
his  martial  lyrics,  best  represented  by  the  familiar  Dirge 
for  a  Soldier.  When  peace  was  restored,  this  distin 
guished  and  patriotic  citizen,  who  maintained  with  care 
his  social  position  in  Philadelphia's  inmost  circle,  was 
naturally  singled  out  for  public  honors.  He  was  sent  as 
United  States  Minister  to  Russia,  where  he  evinced  dip 
lomatic  ability  of  a  high  order.  It  is  an  honorable 
record,  and  yet  when  Barrett,  a  quarter  of  a  century 
after  Boker's  plays  had  been  mangled  in  our  earlier 
theatres,  staged  one  of  them,  Francesco,  da  Rimini,  with 
eminent  success,  Boker  wrote  sadly  of  the  difference  such 
recognition  might  have  made  in  his  life-work,  had  it 
come  when  the  poetic  purpose  of  his  youth  was  still 
untamed. 

Stoddard,  who  survives  his  youthful  comrades,  has 
had  no  such  stirring  experiences,  yet  not  the  most  bril 
liant  career  could  be  more  creditable  than  his.  Passing 


196  AMERICAN   LITERATURE  CHAP. 

by  patient  steps  from  the  foundry  to  the  custom-house, 
the  dock  department,  the  public  library,  he  arrived  at 
journalism,  and  has  long  been  installed  as  literary  editor 
of  the  New  York  Mail  and  Express.  Happily  married 
to  a  lady  of  kindred  gifts,  he  has  unswervingly  cultivated 
the  art  more  precious  than  riches  or  applause.  Al 
though  the  lingering  glow  of  Keats  and  of  Tennyson, 
whom  the  young  workman  loved,  may  be  discerned  here 
and  there,  as  in  the  graceful  minstrelsy  of  The  Kings 
Sell,  and  the  liquid  measures  of  the  Hymn  to  the  Beau 
tiful,  Stoddard's  verse  has  taken  on  more  and  more  a 
frank,  half-homely  quality,  suggestive  of  the  plain  Ameri 
can  manhood  it  embodies.  How  truly  this  manhood, 
for  all  its  quiet  self-control,  thrills  with  the  poet's  pas 
sion,  is  proved  by  such  a  noble  lyric  as  Adsum.  Yet 
the  white-haired  minstrel,  whom  New  York  delights 
to  honor,  does  not  forget,  in  his  "  golden  flush  of  sun 
set,"  the  fearless  flame  of  dawn.  In  his  own  far-echoing 

lines, 

"  There  are  gains  for  all  our  losses, 

There  are  balms  for  all  our  pain; 
But  when  youth,  the  dream,  departs, 
It  takes  something  from  our  hearts, 
And  it  never  comes  again." 

The  three  young  poets  had  drawn  others  to  them. 
Thomas  Buchanan  Read,  the  landscape  painter,  whose 
contribution  to  poetry  is  not  confined  to  Sheridan's  Ride 
and  Drifting,  had  been  born  in  Taylor's  county  and  cele 
brated  his  exploits  with  brush  and  pen.  Still  another 


IV  NATIONAL  ERA:   POETRY  1 97 

Pennsylvania!!,  Charles  Godfrey  Leland,  a  diffusive 
genius,  ranging  from  metaphysics  to  music,  and  from 
industrial  arts  to  gypsy  lore,  found  a  magnet  in  Boker, 
for  whom  he  had  conceived  a  boyish  admiration  when 
they  were  both  undergraduates  at  Princeton.  It  was  not 
until  the  middle  fifties,  however,  that  the  first  of  Leland's 
humorous  ballads  in  the  German- American  dialect  gained 
him  the  sobriquet  of  "Hans  Breitmann."  In  the  fifties, 
too,  Aldrich  came  into  the  group,  to  learn  from  Taylor 
the  longing  for  the  East,  and  EDMUND  CLARENCE  STED- 
MAN  joined  that  goodly  fellowship.  His  promise  was 

bright,  but 

"  loving  Beauty,  and,  by  chance, 
Too  poor  to  make  her  all  in  all," 

on  his  way  to  Parnassus  he  turned  aside  into  Wall  Street 
for  a  few  golden  years  and,  losing  his  way  there,  tarried 
over-long.  To  be  America's  most  illustrious  living  critic 
is  worth  while  only  for  a  man  who  could  be  nothing  better. 
Yet  the  impetuous  sweep  of  his  war-songs,  his  Kearney 
at  Seven  Pines,  Gettysburg,  Wanted  —  A  Man,  the  play 
ful  grace  of  such  a  lyric  as  Toujours  Amour  or  such  a 
strain  of  native  balladry  as  The  Doorstep,  the  deeper, 
calmer  force  of  The  Undiscovered  Country  and  Liberty 
Enlightening  the  World,  put  us  too  far  in  Stedman's  debt 
for  complaining.  Scribner's  Magazine,  established  in 
1870,  under  the  charge  of  Dr.  J.  G.  Holland,  whose 
pleasant  stories  and  rhymed  romances  were  once  much 
in  vogue,  was  seconded  a  decade  later  by  The  Century. 
These  magazines,  with  the  Harper's,  have  made  rallying- 


198  AMERICAN   LITERATURE  CHAP. 

points  for  the  New  York  poets,  though  in  no  exclusive  or 
inevitable  sense.  Through  their  attractive  pages  many  a 
modest  lyrist,  as  Helen  Gray  Cone,  with  her  valorous 
sallies  of  song,  and  Sophie  Jewett,  with  her  firm  and  deli 
cate  art,  her  tenderness  and  spiritual  vision,  have  been 
brought  before  the  public.  The  present  editor  of  The 
Century,  RICHARD  WATSON  GILDER,  a  troubadour  of  purest 
strain,  is  to-day  the  poetic  chief  of  the  city.  But  appar 
ently  no  New  Yorker  can  live  for  poetry  alone.  Gilder's 
generous  interest  in  tenement  house  reform  is  only  one 
phase  of  the  metropolitan  care  for  public  concerns.  The 
great  seaport  is  indomitable  with  its  din  of  modern  life. 
It  crushes  Arcady  beneath  the  globe.  As  Stedman  sang 
for  Cuba  and  Crete,  the  Stock  Exchange  and  the  Gree- 
ley  Monument,  so  to  open  one  of  Gilder's  later  volumes 
is  to  learn  what  passing  player  or  musician  has  just  stirred 
the  city's  pulse,  and  what  loss  of  bard  or  warrior  this 
hemisphere  or  the  other  is  lamenting.  Among  the  poet- 
deaths  this  sensitive  plate  has  pictured  is  that  of  Emma 
Lazarus,  whose  sacred  Hebrew  fire  was  quenched  too 

soon. 

"The  silence  where  a  bird  hath  ceased  to  sing" 

is  the  memorial  of  H.  C.  Bunner,  the  blithe-toned  editor 
of  Puck,  but  the  new  society  verse,  whose  art  he  had 
filched  from  the  English  Dobson,  may  be  had  in  the 
bazaar  of  Clinton  Scollard,  with  whom,  too,  another 
influence,  the  unexhausted  Orient  spell  of  Taylor,  is  yet 
potent. 

It  is  a  far  cry  from  all  this  sweet,  dainty,  and  somewhat 


IV  NATIONAL  ERA:   POETRY  199 

irresolute  music  of  Manhattan's  present-day  singers  to 
the  "barbaric  yawp"  of  WALT  WHITMAN,  a  looming, 
rugged  figure  still  on  trial  before  the  court  of  critics.  In 
1855  there  broke  upon  the  world  a  sound  that  impressed 
most  hearers  as  a  bestial  bellow. 

"  Of  physiology  from  top  to  toe  I  sing," 

chanted  this  Apollo  in  shirt  sleeves,  and  forthwith  pro 
ceeded  so  to  do.  The  American  public,  so  far  as  it 
heeded  him  at  all,  was  affronted,  and  with  right  good 
reason.  Hitherto  its  poets,  Harvard  professors,  Concord 
sages,  graceful  Southerners,  polished  Philadelphians  and 
New  Yorkers,  had  written  like  the  pure-hearted,  cultivated 
gentlemen  they  were,  cherishing  those  chivalries  and  holy 
privacies  which  are  the  slowly  ripened  fruit  of  civilization. 
Even  Poe,  our  imp  of  the  perverse,  threw  only  white  and 
tremulous  lights  about  the  name  of  love.  An  official 
attempt  was  made  to  suppress  Leaves  of  Grass  as  inde 
cent,  but  Walt  Whitman  was  not  to  be  suppressed. 

"  Bearded,  sunburnt,  gray-neck'd,  forbidding,  I  have  arrived." 

Emerson  and  Thoreau  were  the  foremost  of  his  wel- 
comers,  rejoicing  in  the  man's  freshness  and  courage, 
although  protesting  against  the  offensive  element  in  his 
early  work,  —  a  taint  from  which  the  bulk  of  his  poetry 
is  free.  It  turned  out,  on  inquiry,  that  this  "  natural  and 
nonchalant  person  "  was  of  Long  Island  birth  and  farmer 
ancestry,  a  man  of  meagre  schooling,  who  had  knocked 
about  the  world  in  a  free-and-easy  way,  roaming  through 
the  West  and  South,  lingering  in  the  great  cities,  trying 


2OO  AMERICAN   LITERATURE  CHAP. 

his  hand  at  teaching,  gardening,  printing,  journalism,  and 
carpentry,  and  making  up  his  mind  to  be  a  poet. 

"  I,  now  thirty-seven  years  old,  in  perfect  health,  begin, 
Hoping  to  cease  not  till  death." 

His  hope  won  fulfilment.  Although  that  rich  vitality 
was  so  impaired  by  his  arduous  service  as  war-nurse 
that  the  last  twenty  years  of  his  life  were  those  of  a  para 
lytic,  his  tide  of  song  rolled  steadily  on  to  the  end.  It 
had  gained  high  favor  meanwhile  with  certain  poetic 
connoisseurs  in  Europe  and  America,  but  has  still  to  win, 
if  win  it  can,  the  ear  of  the  people,  whose  peculiar  poet 
Whitman  claimed  to  be. 

The  first  impression  given  by  his  book  is  that  of  coarse 
and  monstrous  egotism,  often  grotesque  in  expression. 

"  I  dote  on  myself,  there  is  that  lot  of  me  and  all  so  luscious." 

On  closer  scrutiny,  it  comes  to  light  that  Whitman's 
blatant  "myself"  is  to  be  interpreted  as  "the  sign  of 
democracy,"  that  an  egotism  commensurate  with  his  own 
is  enjoined  upon  us  one  and  all. 

"  I  celebrate  myself,  and  sing  myself, 
And  what  I  assume  you  shall  assume, 
For  every  atom  belonging  to  me  as  good  belongs  to  you." 

Even  so,  the  beauty  of  braggadocio,  as  against  the 
beauty  of  modesty,  is  yet  to  be  made  apparent.  It 
develops  further,  that  the  corrective  for  this  complacent 
self-love  lies  in  the  love  of  comrades. 

"  I  will  sing  the  evangel-poem  of  comrades  and  of  love." 


IV  NATIONAL  ERA:   POETRY  2OI 

There  is  something  appropriate  in  this,  —  in  the  promise 
of  a  mighty  song  of  comradeship  to  peal  forth  from  the 
great  Babel,  where  hitherto  the  flame  of  poetry  had  been 
able  to  live  only  as  friendship  shielded  it,  as  Drake  and 
Halleck,  or  Taylor,  Stoddard,  and  Boker  bent  over  it 
together.  Walt  Whitman's  chosen  comrades,  however, 
were  not  fellow-poets,  but  boat-men,  stage-drivers,  and 
artisans. 

"  The  young  mechanic  is  closest  to  me  —  he  knows  me  pretty  well." 

Yet  Whitman  sometimes  forsook  his  favorite  loafing- 
places  of  wharf  and  ferry  to  meet  the  literary  Bohemians 
of  New  York  at  Pfaffs  beer  cellar,  where  the  keen  old 
Halleck  is  said  to  have  remarked,  "Walt  ought  to 
write  his  poems  seated  on  the  back  of  an  elephant." 

Whitman's  war  experiences  brought  out  the  best  of 
him.  In  Drum-Taps  there  are  to  be  found  gleams  of 
pure  imagination,  throbs  of  sonorous  music,  and  a  tone 
of  noble  passion,  culminating  ("  O  liquid  and  free  and 
tender ! ")  in  the  marvellous  Lincoln  elegy,  with  its 
triumphal  chant  to  "  sane  and  sacred  death."  But 
this  is  his  climax.  He  praised,  like  a  lusty  vaga 
bond,  the  joys  of  sheer  sensation,  he  felt,  and  to  some 
degree  communicates,  the  emotions  awakened  by  the 
infinite  picture-book  of  nature  and  of  human  life,  but 
in  his  own  admission,  "  the  physical  and  the  sensuous  " 
had  too  strong  hold  upon  him  to  admit  of  his  interpret 
ing  the  tragic  forces  of  ethical  law,  or  revealing  the  face 
of  spiritual  beauty.  Apart  from  the  war,  his  attitude 


2O2  AMERICAN   LITERATURE  CHAP. 

toward  life  is  as  cheerfully  irresponsible  as  his  attitude 
toward  art.  His  long,  unrhymed  lines,  sometimes  loose 
and  awkward,  sometimes  falling  into  measures  of  natural 
grace  and  power,  suggest  the  careless  postures,  now 
majestic,  now  a  sprawl,  of  the  grand  old  gypsy  himself. 
But  he  loved  the  big  show  of  America,  he  had  faith  in 
the  wholesomeness  of  common  life  and  common  folk,  he 
filled  his  day-dreams  with  tjie  trooping  figures  of  our 
industrial  pageant,  he  globed  in  our  basal  idea  of 
human  brotherhood,  his  lower  mood  was  crossed,  more 
and  more,  by  waves  of  divine  yearning,  and  he  has  left  a 
phenomenal  record,  not  only  of  the  aspect  of  a  particular 
epoch  in  democratic  evolution,  but  of  the  impression 
made  by  this  strange,  changeful  world,  this  mortal  pano 
rama,  on  a  mind  reckless  of  traditions  and  conventions. 
If,  as  Longfellow  makes  an  enterprising  publisher  say  in 
Kavanagh,  "we  want  a  national  literature  altogether 
shaggy  and  unshorn,  that  shall  shake  the  earth  like  a 
herd  of  buffaloes  thundering  over  the  prairies,"  we  come 
near  getting  it  in  Walt  Whitman. 

XL  The  Poetry  of  the  West  began  in  the  Ohio  valley. 
Two  sisters,  ALICE  and  PHCEBE  GARY,  born  near  Cincin 
nati  in  the  early  twenties,  the  elder  strong  of  will  and 
warm  of  heart,  the  younger  with  a  shyer  and  more  saucy 
vein,  were  reared  in  a  typical  little  brown  house,  with 
cherry-branches  brushing  the  roof  and  a  sweet-briar 
climbing  to  the  eaves.  In  girlhood  they  turned  to  verse- 
making,  much  like  the  Goodale  sisters  in  the  Berkshires 
a  generation  later;  in  womanhood  they  removed  to 


IV  NATIONAL  ERA:    POETRY  2O3 

New  York,  where  they  won  fame  and  friends  in  such 
degree  that  their  Sunday  evening  receptions  became  one 
of  the  features  of  the  city.  Both  carolled  as  simply  as 
the  birds  that  gladdened  their  sweet-briar,  but  the  verse 
of  the  younger  has  the  keener  edge.  Another  poetic 
partnership  is  that  of  MR.  and  MRS.  PIATT,  the  husband 
a  native  of  Indiana,  the  wife  of  Kentucky.  Mrs.  Piatt, 
more  artistic  than  the  Gary  sisters,  has  not  their  secret 
of  touching  the  popular  heart,  although  her  poems  for 
children  have  the  genuine  mother-note.  John  J.  Piatt 
first  came  before  the  public  with  a  little  volume  enti 
tled  Poems  of  Two  Friends.  His  companion  in  the 
venture  was  Howells,  who  soon  deserted  poetry  for  the 
more  profitable  art  of  fiction.  Piatt,  on  the  other  hand, 
developed  into  a  clear-toned  singer,  proud  to  commem 
orate  the  heroic  days  of  the  prairie-land,  when  the  cloud- 
built  cities  of  the  sunset  fronted  the  log-cabin  in  the 

clearing,  with  their 

"  gorgeous  prophecy 
Lighting  the  doorway  of  the  pioneer." 

WILL  CARLETON,  of  Michigan  birth,  also  rhymes  the  strug 
gles  of  the  first  settlers,  recognizing  with  manly  tender 
ness  the  woman's  share  of  the  burden,  but  his  frank, 
effective  verse  is  chiefly  occupied  with  the  plain  life  of 
the  plain  present.  His  poetic  form  is  a  rude  sort  of 
dramatic  monologue.  It  is  the  heart-sore  old  farmer 
himself  who  tells,  in  his  honest  fashion,  how  Betsey  and 
I  are  out.  We  listen  to  the  forlorn  old  mother  on  her 
way  Over  the  Hill  to  the  Poor-House.  In  Carleton's 


2O4  AMERICAN   LITERATURE  CHAP. 

ballads  we  find  the  crude  new  West  of  county  fair  and 
singing-school.  The  tragedies  are  of  farm-work,  mort 
gage,  and  foreclosure.  The  actors,  though  they  "  never 
swallowed  a  grammar,"  are  brave,  kindly,  and  pious, 
with  an  unfailing  sense  of  fun  to  help  their  hard  lives 
through.  JAMES  WHITCOMB  RILEY,  born  in  Indiana  and 
successively  a  sign-painter,  strolling  actor,  journalist,  and 
public  reader,  writes  in  the  Hoosier  dialect  of  The  Old 
Swimmin'-Hole,  How  John  quit  the  Farm,  and  like 
homely  themes.  He  is  a  sympathetic  singer  of  child 
hood,  although  he  falls  short  here  of  EUGENE  FIELD. 
This  sweet-souled  lyrist,  a  native  of  St.  Louis  and  in  his 
later  life  a  resident  of  Chicago,  left  in  the  ten  volumes 
of  his  collected  works  nothing  so  dear  to  West  and  East 
as  the  simple  stanzas  of  Little  Boy  Blue.  EDITH  THOMAS 
of  Ohio  and  MAURICE  THOMPSON  of  Indiana  are  pre 
eminently  poets  of  nature.  Well  versed  in  books,  and 
often  caged  in  cities,  they  are  nevertheless  natural  tenants 
of  wood  and  field. 

"  He  is  a  poet  strong  and  true 
Who  loves  wild  thyme  and  honey-dew; 

And  like  a  brown  bee  works  and  sings 
With  morning  freshness  on  his  wings, 

And  a  golden  burden  on  his  thighs,  — 
The  pollen-dust  of  centuries !  " 

There  is  action  in  Thompson's  lyrics.  The  white  heron 
is  brought  down  by  the  arrow,  the  bass  is  landed  at  last, 
we  do  not  forget  that  this  fair-weather  loiterer  has  been 
a  man  of  war.  His  most  listless  postures  have  sinewy 


IV  NATIONAL  ERA:   POETRY 


suggestions.  But  the  poems  of  Edith  Thomas  are  bathed 
in  dream.  She  has  "  slept  on  the  mountain  of  song." 
Long-lost  Elizabethan  cadences  are  blown  over  the 
rippling  wheat  and  poppies  into  her  Arcadian  verse, 

for 

"  The  god  of  music  dwelleth  out  of  doors." 

JOHN  HAY  of  Indiana,  our  present  Ambassador  to  Eng 
land,  has  known  more  of  camps  and  courts  than  of 
sylvan  solitudes.  Admitted  to  the  Illinois  bar,  he  won 
Lincoln's  friendship,  and  followed  him  to  the  White 
House  in  the  capacity  of  private  secretary.  Hay  re 
linquished  this  task,  after  a  little,  for  service  in  the  field, 
but  was  presently  recalled  to  the  President  as  aide-de 
camp.  Those  years  of  close  intercourse  bore  fruit,  more 
than  twenty  years  after  the  assassination,  in  the  great 
biography  of  Lincoln  issued  by  the  two  secretaries,  Hay 
and  Nicolay.  In  the  meanwhile,  Hay  was  pursuing  a 
diplomatic  career  which  has  left  its  traces  on  his  poems. 
Paris  he  knew,  Vienna  and  Madrid  ;  but,  most  of  all,  the 
daily  companion  of  Lincoln  learned  to  know  manliness. 
"  What  we  call  vulgar  society,"  said  Emerson,  "  is  that 
society  whose  poetry  is  not  yet  written."  Of  nobler 
strain,  even,  than  Hay's  Triumph  of  Order,  more  truly 
pathetic  than  A  Woman's  Love,  are  his  Pike  County 
Ballads,  showing  us  heroes  in  Banty  Tim,  Old  Ben  the 
stage-driver,  and  Jim  Bludso,  the  Mississippi  engineer, 
whose  "cussedness"  saved  every  life  but  his  own^on 
board  the  "  Prairie  Belle." 


2O6  AMERICAN   LITERATURE  CHAP. 

"  He  weren't  no  saint,  —  but  at  jedgment 

I'd  run  my  chance  with  Jim, 
'Longside  of  some  pious  gentlemen 
That  wouldn't  shook  hands  with  him. 

He  seen  his  duty,  a  dead-sure  thing  — 

And  went  for  it  thar  and  then  ; 
And  Christ  ain't  a-going  to  be  too  hard 

On  a  man  that  died  for  men." 

The  rougher  West  depicted  in  the  Pike  County  Ballads 
was  brought  with  a  rush  into  our  literature  by  FRANCIS 
BRET  HARTE,  to  whom  it  fell  to  witness  and  portray  the 
wild  life  of  the  California  gold-diggers.  It  was  a  fever 
ish,  wicked,  dauntless  moment  of  time,  and  Bret  Harte, 
a  New  York  stripling  plunging  into  all  adventures  that 
offered,  caught  it  in  its  splendid  lights  and  sable  shadows. 
He  found  his  fame  with  the  true  California  suddenness, 
as  if  he  had  picked  up  a  nugget  or  "struck  it  rich." 
His  first  mining  story,  The  Luck  of  Roaring  Camp, 
could  hardly  get  into  the  respectable  pages  of  San 
Francisco's  brand-new  magazine,  the  Overland,  of  which 
Bret  Harte  himself  was  editor.  Printer,  proof-reader, 
and  publisher  joined  in  protest.  Once  in  type,  it  brought 
the  East,  in  shape  of  the  Atlantic  Monthly,  to  sit  at  his 
feet  and  ask  for  more.  The  Outcasts  of  Poker  Flat  only 
whetted  the  appetite  for  desperado  romance,  while  The 
Heathen  Chinee  and  Truthful  James  convinced  England 
that  the  long-looked-for  American  poet  had  appeared  at 
last.  If  Bret  Harte  has  not  fulfilled  expectation,  he  has 
at  least  faithfully  rung  the  changes  on  his  original  themes 


IV  NATIONAL  ERA:   POETRY  2O? 

and  has  added  to  his  red-shirt  poetry  a  group  of  stirring 
war- songs. 

The  experience  of  JOAQUIN  MILLER,  a  native  of  Indiana, 
tallies  with  that  of  Bret  Harte  in  the  two  respects  of  an 
adventurous  youth  in  canons  and  gold-fields,  and  an 
exaggerated  English  estimate  of  his  genius ;  but  the 
"  Poet  of  the  Sierras  "  is  no  realist.  Instead  of  phono- 
graphing  the  slang  of  mining-camps,  he  gives  voice 
to  that  spirit  of  Spanish  and  Mexican  romance  which 
haunts  the  Sun-lands.  Though  lauded  by  London  for 
originality,  no  American  poet  of  equal  rank  is  so  bare 
faced  as  he  in  theft  of  literary  styles.  He  is  a  careless 
craftsman,  too,  —  a  rough  rider  both  in  the  headlong 
gallop  of  his  Byronesque  cantos  and  the  swinging  and 
wheeling  manoeuvres  of  his  Swinburnian  lyrics ;  but  he 
has  dash  and  color,  abandon  to  nature  and  adoration  of 
beauty. 

So  from  earnest  North  and  wistful  South,  cities  and 
wheatlands,  and,  at  last,  from  the  rich  Pacific  slope,  a 
music  rises,  the  prelude  of  America's  new  song  among 
the  nations : 

"The  poets  come  who  cannot  fail; 
Happy  are  they  who  sing  thy  perfect  days !  " 


2O8  AMERICAN  LITERATURE  CHAP. 


CHAPTER  V 

NATIONAL  ERA:    PROSE  THOUGHT 

"  The  true  sovereigns  of  a  country  are  those  who  determine  its 
mind,  its  mode  of  thinking,  its  tastes,  its  principles."  —  WILLIAM 
ELLERY  CHANNING,  Remarks  on  National  Literature. 

I.  Criticism  of  Life.  —  What  is  known  as  NEW  ENGLAND 
TRANSCENDENTALISM  represents  our  first  American  period 
of  criticism  of  life.  For  upwards  of  two  centuries  cavalier 
conventions  had  held  sway  in  the  South ;  almost  as  long 
the  North  had  been  bound  by  Puritan  tradition.  The 
Revolution,  our  happy  heresy  in  politics,  had  been  fol 
lowed  by  signs  of  social  and  religious  revolt,  but  public 
attention  was  generally  absorbed  by  the  new  experiment 
of  an  American  republic,  and  not  until  1830  or  there 
abouts  were  the  times  ripe,  even  in  the  long-settled  East, 
for  a  speculative  outlook  on  life.  Unitarianism  had  dis 
arranged  the  old  formulas  of  faith.  Rev.  Jonathan  May- 
hew  of  Boston,  an  eloquent  patriot  who  died  ten  years 
before  the  pealing  of  the  Liberty  Bell,  was  the  Unitarian 
pioneer  in  New  England.  Some  twenty  years  after  his 
death,  King's  Chapel  put  forth  a  liturgy,  drawn  up  by 
Rev.  James  Freeman,  from  which  all  Trinitarian  expres 
sions  were  omitted.  The  long-muttering  storm  crashed 
upon  New  England  early  in  the  present  century.  The 
Trinitarians,  led  by  Professor  Woods  and  Professor  Stuart 


v  NATIONAL  ERA:   PROSE  THOUGHT  2O9 

of  Andover,  and  by  the  redoubtable  Lyman  Beecher, 
fought  strongly  for  the  faith  of  the  fathers,  but  the  Unita 
rians,  for  a  generation,  steadily  gained  ground,  especially 
in  the  neighborhood  of  Boston  and  of  Harvard  College. 
A  reason  for  this  may  be  found  in  the  human  longing  for 
freedom.  The  old  theology,  considered  here  quite  apart 
from  the  truth  of  its  teachings,  had  held  thought  too  rigidly 
within  certain  prescribed  limits.  Unitarianism  cast  aside 
fear  and  formalism.  It  bade  men  be  glad,  virtuous,  and 
loving.  It  stood  for  frank  inquiry,  for  culture,  morality, 
and  for  a  spirit  of  human  sympathy  that  led  at  once  to 
the  agitation  of  social  reforms.  Its  most  eminent  figure 
was  WILLIAM  ELLERY  CHANNING,  as  benign,  serene,  and 
sensitive  a  soul  as  ever  led  revolt,  a  poetic  dreamer  be 
fore  whose  eyes  had  passed  the  vision  of  Divine  Beauty, 
and  a  pulpit  orator  who  spoke  "  with  the  animation  and 
elevation  of  one  who  hears  the  great  theme."  Tran 
scendentalism  quickly  caught  at  his  watchwords.  "Rise 
up  and  be  a  man,"  rang  the  voice  of  Emerson,  "  cast  off 
those  cumbrous  things  of  old,  let  conscience  be  your  law 
giver,  reason  your  oracle,  nature  your  temple,  holiness 
your  high  priest,  and  a  divine  life  your  offering."  But 
Channing's  disciples  soon  outran  the  master.  Unitari 
anism,  at  first  so  bold  a  departure,  became  in  turn  a 
centre  of  conservatism.  THEODORE  PARKER,  that  "  Orson 
of  divines,"  led  off  a  radical  church  of  his  own.  "To 
this  day,"  writes  Colonel  Higginson,  "  I  sometimes  dream 
of  going  to  hear  him  preach,  —  the  great,  free,  eager 
congregation  ;  the  strong,  serious,  commanding  presence 


2IO  AMERICAN   LITERATURE  CHAP. 

of  the  preacher;  his  reverent  and  earnest  prayer;  his 
comprehensive  hour-long  sermon  full  of  sense,  know 
ledge,  feeling,  courage,  he  being  not  afraid  even  of  his 
own  learning,  absolutely  holding  his  audience  in  the 
hollow  of  his  hand." 

With  all  these  heresies  in  the  air,  even  the  strongholds 
of  orthodoxy  showed  rifts  and  apertures  through  which 
new  light  from  overseas  came  flooding  in.  The  lofty 
idealism  of  Germany,  that  "  transfigured  Protestantism  of 
the  land  of  Luther,"  represented  in  England  by  Cole 
ridge  and  Wordsworth  and,  for  a  time,  by  Carlyle,  found 
New  England  ready.  All  that  was  needed  was  an  inter 
preter,  and  that  interpreter  appeared  in  RALPH  WALDO 
EMERSON. 

The  "spiritual-looking  boy  in  blue  nankeen,"  who  im 
pressed  at  least  one  companion  at  the  Latin  School  as 
"  angelic  "  in  aspect,  was  even  then  a  reader  of  Plato. 
During  his  freshman  year  at  Harvard  he  took  delight  in 
the  ethereal  visions  of  Spenser's  Faery  Queene.  "  What 
we  do  not  call  education,"  Emerson  wrote,  "  is  more 
gracious  than  what  we  do  call  so,"  and  he  slighted  his 
college  mathematics  for  long  hours  with  the  poets  and 
for  solitary  strolls.  Yet  for  several  years  his  outer  life, 
decorous,  unobtrusive,  shy,  gave  little  hint  of  the  signifi 
cant  processes  of  thought  that  were  going  on  within. 
While  he  was  teaching  in  the  schoolroom  "  the  safe  and 
cold  details  "  of  languages  and  sciences,  he  was  writing 
out,  every  night,  in  his  chamber,  his  "  first  thoughts  on 
morals  and  the  beautiful  laws  of  compensation  and  of 


V  NATIONAL  ERA:   PROSE  THOUGHT  211 

individual  genius."  As  a  preacher,  he  began  to  win 
attention,  yet  the  charm  of  his  presence,  that  rare  sweet 
ness  of  face  and  resonance  of  voice,  the  illustrations 
drawn  from  wood  and  meadow,  and  the  simplicity  and 
naturalness  of  his  style,  interested  his  audiences  more 
than  the  philosophical  novelties  so  gently  brought  to 
bear  upon  them. 

Emerson's  career  as  a  settled  pastor  covered  little 
more  than  three  years.  Having  studied  divinity  under 
the  Unitarian  influences  of  Harvard,  he  was  naturally  a 
follower  of  Charming  and  was  ordained,  in  the  spring  of 
1829,  as  colleague  with  another  of  the  Unitarian  pioneers, 
the  Rev.  Henry  Ware,  over  Cotton  Mather's  own  church, 
the  Old  North  of  Boston.  The  young  pastor's  growing 
reluctance  to  administer  the  sacrament  of  the  Lord's 
Supper,  which  seemed  to  him  the  binding  of  religion  to 
a  form,  led  to  his  resignation  in  the  fall  of  1833.  Dur 
ing  this  brief  pastorate,  the  wife  of  his  youth,  shadowed 
from  the  first  by  consumption,  had  died.  His  own  health 
now  threatening  to  give  way,  Emerson  sought  relief  in  a 
long  winter  voyage  to  Sicily,  whence  he  slowly  journeyed 
northward  through  Italy  and  westward  to  Paris  and  Lon 
don.  But  grief  for  his  lost  Ellen  haunted  him  in  Naples 
as  in  Roxbury,  and  his  vivid  Americanism,  yearning 
toward  the  freshness  of  the  future,  earth's  marvels  yet 
in  store,  put  him  curiously  out  of  sympathy  with  the 
picturesque  ruins  of  the  past,  "  poor,  gray,  shabby " 
places,  of  which  he  "  soon  had  enough."  Pictures,  stat 
ues,  even  cathedrals,  found  him  cold  to  their  beauty. 


212  AMERICAN   LITERATURE  CHAP. 

"  How  few  materials  are  yet  used  by  our  arts  !  The 
mass  of  creatures  and  of  qualities  are  still  hid  and  ex 
pectant."  By  no  means  a  model  tourist,  what  he  liked 
best  on  the  Continent  was  Landor,  and  in  the  British 
Isles  Carlyle.  The  happy  impression  made  by  his  visit 
to  Carlyle  was  never,  in  either  mind,  effaced.  The  fierce 
prophet  and  tranquil  poet  were  friends  till  death.  "  That 
man,"  said  Carlyle,  "  came  to  see  me,  I  don't  know  what 
brought  him,  and  we  kept  him  one  night,  and  then  he 
left  us.  I  saw  him  go  up  the  hill ;  I  didn't  go  with  him 
to  see  him  descend.  I  preferred  to  watch  him  mount 
and  vanish  like  an  angel."  And  poor  Mrs.  Carlyle  never 
forgot  "  the  Visitor,  who  years  ago  in  the  Desert  de 
scended  on  us,  out  of  the  clouds  as  it  were,  and  made 
one  day  there  look  like  enchantment  for  us,  and  left  me 
weeping  that  it  was  only  one  day." 

On  his  homeward  voyage,  Emerson  jotted  down  in  his 
diary,  one  Sunday,  a  few  sentences  that  hold  the  clew 
alike  to  his  ineffective  past  and  to  his  famous  future. 
"  Milton  describes  himself  in  his  letter  to  Diodati  as  en 
amored  of  moral  perfection.  He  did  not  love  it  more 
than  I.  That  which  I  cannot  yet  declare  has  been  my 
angel  from  childhood  until  now.  It  has  separated  me 
from  men.  It  has  watered  my  pillow.  It  has  driven 
sleep  from  my  bed.  It  has  tortured  me  for  my  guilt. 
It  has  inspired  me  with  hope.  It  cannot  be  defeated 
by  my  defeats.  It  cannot  be  questioned,  though  all  the 
martyrs  apostatize.  It  is  always  the  glory  that  shall  be 
revealed ;  it  is  the  l  open  secret '  of  the  universe." 


v  NATIONAL  ERA:   PROSE  THOUGHT  213 

Glad  after  his  year  of  absence  to  see  America  again, 
Emerson  found  himself  still  willing  to  preach  in  Unita 
rian  churches  from  time  to  time,  as  he  had  opportunity, 
but  more  and  more  he  tended  to  substitute  the  Lyceum 
platform,  with  its  wider  freedom,  for  the  pulpit.  His 
first  lectures  touched  lightly  on  natural  science,  but  he 
soon  shifted  his  ground  to  biography  and  literature. 
He  had  been  at  home  scarcely  a  year,  when  in  his  re 
tirement  at  Concord,  whither  he  presently  brought 
another  bride,  he  registered  a  vow.  "Henceforth  I 
design  not  to  utter  any  speech,  poem,  or  book  that  is 
not  entirely  and  peculiarly  my  work."  From  this  time 
on  Emerson  realized  in  himself  his  definition  of  a 
great  man,  "  who  in  the  midst  of  the  crowd  keeps, 
with  perfect  sweetness,  the  independence  of  solitude." 
Among  the  clamorous  reforms  and  philanthropies  of  the 
day,  he  was  often  reproached  with  indifference ;  but  he 
was  not  indifferent.  He  was  faithful  to  his  own.  He 
would  sometimes  wake  in  the  dark,  tormented  with  the 
nightmare  of  slavery,  blaming  himself  for  standing  aloof 
from  so  tremendous  a  moral  issue,  but  would  take  com 
fort  in  the  reminder  that  it  was  his  individual  mission  to 
free  "imprisoned  thoughts,  far  back  in  the  brain  of 
man."  Addressing  a  New  York  audience  on  The  Fugi 
tive  Slave  Law,  four  years  after  Webster's  momentous 
speech,  Emerson  said :  "  I  do  not  often  speak  to  public 
questions;  they  are  odious  and  hurtful,  and  it  seems 
like  meddling  or  leaving  your  work.  I  have  my  own 
spirits  in  prison;  —  spirits  in  deeper  prisons,  whom  no 


214  AMERICAN   LITERATURE  CHAP. 

man  visits  if  I  do  not.  And  then  I  see  what  havoc  it 
makes  with  any  good  mind,  a  dissipated  philanthropy. 
The  one  thing  not  to  be  forgiven  to  intellectual  persons 
is,  not  to  know  their  own  task."  On  the  rare  occasions 
when  he  overstepped  his  rule,  as  in  his  speech  in 
Concord  town  hall  upon  the  assault  on  Charles  Sumner, 
his  speech  at  the  Kansas  Relief  meeting  in  Cambridge, 
his  John  Brown  speeches  in  Boston  and  Salem,  his 
Washington  speech  on  American  Civilization,  his  joyous 
greeting  of  the  Emancipation  Proclamation,  his  eulogy 
of  the  martyred  President,  Emerson  showed  himself 
every  inch  a  man.  The  strong  indignation  and  stern 
control  of  his  address  upon  the  emancipation  of  the 
negroes  in  the  British  West  Indies,  for  example,  are  in 
marked  contrast  to  his  general  serenity  of  tone.  The 
strain  of  American  practicality,  almost  shrewdness,  that 
coexisted  with  all  his  mysticism  is  hinted  in  various 
titles  applied  to  Emerson,  "a  winged  Franklin,"  "a 
Yankee  Shelley,"  "  the  Buddha  of  the  West."  He  had 
from  childhood,  however,  a  certain  unhandy  quality, 
together  with  an  unreadiness  and  awkwardness  that  put 
him  in  eclipse  beside  his  spirited  brothers  and  remained 
with  him  into  mature  life.  He  often  lamented  the 
"frigidity  and  labor"  of  his  talk  with  people  at  large. 
He  was  so  unskilful  with  tools  that  once,  as  he  was 
plying  the  spade  in  gardening,  his  little  Waldo  anx 
iously  cried  out :  "  Papa,  I  am  afraid  you  will  dig  your 
leg."  In  lecturing,  according  to  Lowell,  "  he  boggled,  he 
lost  his  place,  he  had  to  put  on  his  glasses."  Emerson's 


NATIONAL  ERA:   PROSE  THOUGHT 


own  comment  on  his  imperfection  ran  :  "  I  was  created 
a  seeing  eye,  and  not  a  useful  hand,"  and  even  as  he 
recognized  values  in  his  early  poverty,  the  "  straightened 
lines  "  on  which  he  "walked  up  to  manhood,"  so  was  he 
"very  patient  of  this  folly  or  shame,"  these  "manifold 
imbecilities  "  of  his,  in  the  belief  that  worldly  disadvan 
tages  saved  his  spirit  the  distraction  of  worldly  success, 
enabling  him  to  "nourish"  his  "virtue  in  a  private 
place." 

"  Pale  genius  roves  alone, 

No  scout  can  track  his  way, 
None  credits  him  till  he  have  shown 
His  diamonds  to  the  day. 

Not  his  the  feaster's  wine, 

Nor  land,  nor  gold,  nor  power, 
By  want  and  pain  God  screeneth  him 

Till  his  elected  hour." 

The  hour  struck  in  1836,  when  Emerson  published  his 
little  book  on  Nature.  It  found  few  readers,  but  those 
readers  could  not  be  unaware  of  the  fact  that  an  apostle 
of  idealism  had  arisen  in  the  land.  "  Standing,"  ran 
the  quiet  text,  "  on  the  bare  ground,  —  my  head  bathed 
by  the  blithe  air,  and  uplifted  into  infinite  space,  —  all 
mean  egotism  vanishes.  I  become  a  transparent  eye 
ball  ;  I  am  nothing  ;  I  see  all  ;  the  currents  of  the  Uni 
versal  Being  circulate  through  me;  I  am  part  and 
particle  of  God.  The  name  of  the  nearest  friend 
sounds  then  foreign  and  accidental  :  to  be  brothers,  to 
be  acquaintances,  —  master  or  servant,  is  then  a  trifle 


2l6  AMERICAN   LITERATURE  CHAP. 

and  a  disturbance.  I  am  the  lover  of  uncontained  and 
immortal  beauty." 

In  this  initial  volume  there  was  nothing  of  the  novice. 
The  thoughts  which  he  then  put  into  print  Emerson  had 
brooded  from  boyhood.  His  touch  was  firm.  He  had 
at  last  begun  to  speak  the  "  open  secret "  which  had  so 
long  possessed  his  soul,  crippling  him  for  the  lesser  utili 
ties.  In  the  autumn  in  which  the  book  was  issued, 
Emerson  and  Ripley,  with  two  others,  invited  a  few 
truth-seekers,  including  Alcott,  Margaret  Fuller,  and 
Theodore  Parker,  to  meetings  designed  for  the  finding 
out  a  better  way  of  thought  and  life.  These  assemblies 
continued,  at  irregular  intervals,  for  seven  or  eight  years. 
During  the  latter  half  of  this  period,  the  Transcenden- 
talists,  as  they  had  come  to  be  called,  issued  a  quarterly, 
The  Dial,  with  George  Ripley  and  Elizabeth  Peabody 
for  business  managers,  while  Margaret  Fuller  and  Em 
erson  served  successively  as  editors.  Although  this 
little  group  of  enthusiasts  embraced  a  wide  variety  of 
opinions,  the  central  Transcendental  position  seems  to 
have  been  faith  in  the  intuitions  and  the  consciousness 
as  against  authority  of  church  or  state  or  system.  The 
emphasis  was  on  freedom  of  thought  and  action,  on  self- 
culture  and  self-reliance,  and  on  the  spiritual  view  of  life 
as  against  the  material.  "  Nature  is  too  thin  a  screen," 
said  Emerson,  "  the  glory  of  the  One  breaks  in  every 
where."  "God?"  he  asked.  "It  is  all  God.  .  .  . 
The  world  is  saturated  with  deity." 

A  little  less  than  a  year  after  the  publication  of  Nature, 


v  NATIONAL  ERA:   PROSE  THOUGHT 

Emerson  was  invited  to  give  the  annual  address  before 
the  Phi  Beta  Kappa  Society  of  Harvard.  In  this  he 
claimed  that  the  American  scholar,  looking  to  nature 
and  to  life  for  education  more  than  to  mere  books, 
should  be  free  and  brave,  not  daunted  by  Europe  nor 
the  Past,  but  planting  himself  "  indomitably  on  his 
instincts,"  and  revering  his  own  individuality  as  "in 
spired  by  the  Divine  Soul  which  also  inspires  all  men." 
"This  grand  oration,"  says  Holmes,  "was  our  intel 
lectual  Declaration  of  Independence."  By  this  time 
Emerson  had  both  his  following  and  his  tribunal.  Many 
ardent  young  souls  of  Cambridge  were  already  with  him, 
and  one  of  these,  James  Russell  Lowell,  then  an  under 
graduate,  treasured  that  scene  in  memory  "  for  its  pict- 
uresqueness  and  its  inspiration.  What  crowded  and 
breathless  aisles,  what  windows  clustering  with  eager 
heads,  what  enthusiasm  of  approval,  what  grim  silence 
of  foregone  dissent !  " 

The  senior  class  of  the  Harvard  Divinity  School  asked 
Emerson,  the  following  year,  to  deliver  their  graduating 
discourse.  His  attitude  toward  historical  Christianity, 
evinced  on  another  occasion  by  his  declaring  it  "the 
office  of  a  true  teacher  to  show  us  that  God  is,  not  was  : 
that  he  speaketh,  not  spake,"  now  aroused  active  oppo 
sition.  Men  who  had  hitherto  only  laughed  at  what  they 
deemed  his  amiable  lunacies,  began  to  frown.  Unitarians 
joined  with  Trinitarians  in  protest.  But  the  new  teacher, 
no  less  gentle  than  courageous,  held  calmly  on  his  way, 
and  pilgrims  of  every  heterodox  fashion,  from  the  eater 


218  AMERICAN   LITERATURE  CHAP. 

gf  unleavened  bread  to  the  Sun- worshipper  wrapped 
in  a  sheet,  turned  their  course  toward  Concord.  It 
was  a  touch  of  irony  in  fate  that  Emerson,  who  of  all 
men  most  disliked  crude  vehemence  and  fanaticism,  who 
abhorred  an  "  excess  of  fellowship,"  should  become  the 
focus  of  the  reformers.  New  England  was  seething  with 
social  experiments  and  moral  convictions.  Whittier 
wrote  poems  against  the  gallows.  Alcott's  daughters, 
the  "  Little  Women "  of  happy  memory,  never  tasted 
meat  till  they  were  women  indeed.  Negro  slavery, 
corporal  punishment,  prison  discipline,  women's  rights, 
total  abstinence,  foreign  missions,  dress,  money,  marriage, 
education,  were  all  under  hot  discussion.  Community 
life  was  variously  attempted.  Ripley's  experiment  of 
Brook  Farm,  in  which  Emerson  courteously  declined  to 
engage,  tried  to  combine  the  labors  of  pitchfork,  hoe, 
and  milking-pail  with  aesthetics  and  metaphysics.  Al 
cott's  vegetarian  venture  of  Fruitlands,  which,  again,  did 
not  "  commend  itself"  to  Emerson  "as  the  way  of  great 
ness,"  took  on  the  features  of  asceticism.  While  each 
of  the  Transcendentalists  was  preaching  his  own  doctrine 
or  riding  his  own  hobby,  their  leader  went  on  living  as 
sane  and  modest  a  life  as  the  "  great  craving  humanity  " 
that  knocked  at  his  door  from  one  week's  end  to  another 
would  permit.  Withdrawn  into  his  study,  he  would  work 
at  "large  leisure  in  noble  mornings,  opened  by  prayer 
or  by  readings  of  Plato,  or  whatsoever  else  is  dearest  to 
the  Morning  Muse."  His  way  of  using  books  was  like 
his  way  of  using  nature.  He  attempted  little  in  the  line 


NATIONAL  ERA:   PROSE  THOUGHT 


of  exact  and  critical  knowledge,  but  he  dipped  into  his 
favorite  volumes,  Oriental  bards,  Greek  sages,  Christian 
mystics,  for  inspiration  and  suggestion,  for  seeds  of 
thought.  His  gleanings  from  library  or  woodland  stroll 
took  form  in  aphorisms,  often  exquisitely  chiselled,  which 
he  would  afterwards  sort  out,  arrange  under  subjects,  and 
strive  to  weld  together  into  lectures  and  essays.  He 
himself  sighed  over  his  "  paragraphs  incompressible,  each 
sentence  an  infinitely  repellent  particle."  Shaped  by 
such  a  method,  the  Emerson  essay  naturally  shows  little 
sequence  or  development  of  thought.  It  does  not  arch 
in  perfect  curve,  like  a  rainbow,  but  sparkles  like  a 
nebula  of  star-stuff.  Yet  it  matters  less  that  no  single 
essay  is  a  logical  unit,  for,  taken  together,  all  the  essays 
are  upon  one  theme  and  tend  to  one  result.  As  Emer 
son  said  of  Carlyle's  letters,  they  "  savour  always  of 
eternity." 

"  My  whole  philosophy,  which  is  very  real,"  Emerson 
wrote,  "  teaches  acquiescence  and  optimism."  He  was 
at  peace  in  the  will  of  God.  He  had  attained  the  Ori 
ental  passivity.  "  Fear  and  hope  are  alike  beneath  In 
tuition;  it  asks  nothing,  and  is  raised  above  passion." 
"  Grief  is  abnormal,"  he  said,  and  sin  grew  to  him  less 
and  less  a  reality.  "Nothing  shall  warp  me  from  the 
belief  that  every  man  is  a  lover  of  the  truth."  Away 
from  home,  he  sent  back  his  love  to  the  "  little  saints  of 
the  nursery."  He  did  not  argue,  but  spoke  with  author 
ity.  "  I  know  that  the  universe  can  receive  no  detriment, 
that  there  is  a  remedy  for  every  wrong,  and  a  satisfaction 


22O  AMERICAN  LITERATURE  CHAP. 

for  every  soul."  "I  have  heard  that  death  takes  us 
away  from  ill  things,  not  from  good.  I  have  heard  that, 
when  we  pronounce  the  name  of  man,  we  pronounce  the 
belief  of  immortality." 

Yet  it  was  not  for  any  philosophy,  as  such,  any  scheme 
of  thought  or  any  phraseology  of  truth,  that  Emerson 
contended.  Heart  and  soul  he  was,  as  he  wrote  on  that 
ocean  passage,  "  enamored  of  moral  perfection."  He 
longed  with  ineffable  longing  for  the  day  when  humanity 
should  be  as  clear  glass  for  the  God-light  shining  through, 
—  "  the  glory  that  shall  be  revealed."  His  one  perennial 
theme  is  the  spirit  of  man  in  relation  to  ideal  beauty,  the 
mortal  in  the  presence  of  immortality.  "  Every  moment 
new  changes  and  new  showers  of  deceptions  to  baffle 
and  distract  him.  And  when,  by  and  by,  for  an  instant, 
the  air  clears  and  the  cloud  lifts  a  little,  there  are  the 
gods  still  sitting  around  him  on  their  thrones,  —  they 
alone  with  him  alone."  Whether  studying  the  uses  of 
nature  to  man,  whether  insisting  on  the  sacred  rights  of 
personality,  whether  extolling  Love  or  Friendship,  Hero 
ism,  Manners  or  Worship,  whether  searching  into  the  in 
dividual  secret  of  Plato,  Swedenborg,  Montaigne,  Shakes 
peare,  Napoleon,  Goethe,  it  is  always  the  Conduct  of 
Life  in  its  fine  and  noble  sense  with  which  Emerson's 
thought  is  occupied. 

Wonderful  to  tell,  he  did  not,  in  his  passion  for  human 
perfection,  lose  patience  with  the  concrete  lives  about 
him.  His  harshest  criticisms  implied  a  praise.  "Tho- 
reau,"  he  said,  "is  with  difficulty  sweet."  The  Concord 


V  NATIONAL  ERA:   PROSE  THOUGHT  221 

farmers  found  this  pleasant  neighbor  of  theirs,  though  a 
little  tongue-tied  himself,  an  admiring  listener  to  their 
blunt  talk  over  the  stone-wall  or  in  town-meeting.  "  It 
was  good,"  wrote  Hawthorne,  "to  meet  him  in  the  wood- 
paths,  or  sometimes  in  our  avenue,  with  that  pure  intel 
lectual  gleam  diffused  about  his  presence  like  the  garment 
of  a  shining  one ;  and  he  so  quiet,  so  simple,  so  without 
pretension,  encountering  each  man  alive  as  if  expecting 
to  receive  more  than  he  could  impart."  With  a  frank 
recognition  of  the  intellectual  and  moral  leadership  of 
minorities  in  the  present  state  of  society,  Emerson's  es 
sential  democracy  outwent  that  of  Jefferson  and  Jackson. 
"  As  to  what  we  call  the  masses,  and  common  men,  — 
there  are  no  common  men.  All  men  are  at  last  of  a  size  ; 
and  true  art  is  only  possible  in  the  conviction  that  every 
talent  has  its  apotheosis  somewhere.  Fair  play  and  an 
open  field  and  freshest  laurels  to  all  who  have  won  them  ! 
But  heaven  reserves  an  equal  scope  for  every  creature." 
As  he  would  not  take  note  of  ugliness  and  evil,  deeming 
these  but  temporary  phases  of  the  eternal  beauty,  the 
eternal  good,  so  in  practice,  as  in  theory,  he  put  smil 
ingly  from  him  the  common  talk  of  people's  faults. 
"We  should  study  rather,"  spoke  this  shaper  of  golden 
sentences,  "  to  make  humanity  beautiful  to  each  other." 
This  wisdom  of  kindness  is  strikingly  exemplified  in 
Emerson's  relations  with  MARGARET  FULLER.  Her  tem 
perament  was  stormy,  her  egotism  pronounced,  her  atti 
tude  often  aggressive,  and  when  she  determined  to  make 
a  personal  friend  of  Emerson,  all  the  resources  of  his 


222  AMERICAN   LITERATURE  CHAP. 

courtesy  were  taxed  to  meet  the  invasion.  But  by 
gracious  habit  of  patience  and  of  high  expectation  he 
learned  her  nobleness  and,  later,  took  his  place  at  the 
head  of  her  illustrious  biographers,  whose  judgment  of 
her  has  become  the  judgment  of  time.  It  is  no  part  of 
Lowell's  greatness  to-day  that  he  showered  with  sneer 
ing  witticisms  the  "  Miranda  "  of  his  Fable  for  Critics, 
and  Hawthorne's  harsh  detractions  have  redounded  to 
his  discredit  rather  than  to  hers ;  but  it  is  permanently 
to  the  praise  of  Emerson,  Higginson,  and  James  Freeman 
Clarke  that,  beyond  plain  face  and  repellent  bearing, 
they  discerned  what  the  English  poet  Landor  was  to  hail 
as  a  "  glorious  soul."  The  literary  women  of  America, 
before  the  day  of  Margaret  Fuller,  pursued  their  quest 
for  truth  or  beauty  with  all  feminine  timidity.  The 
craven  air  of  Hannah  Adams,  who  had  toiled  over  book- 
making  all  her  apologetic  days  and,  with  eyes  grown  dim, 
was  looking  wistfully  toward  heaven  as  a  place  where  she 
might  find  her  "  thirst  for  knowledge  fully  gratified,"  is 
an  extreme  viewed  from  which  the  arrogance  of  her 
young  contemporary  is  almost  welcome.  "  Such  a  pre 
determination,"  said  Carlyle,  "to  eat  this  big  Universe 
as  her  oyster  or  her  egg,  and  to  be  absolute  empress  of 
all  height  and  glory  in  it  that  her  heart  could  conceive,  I 
have  not  before  seen  in  any  human  soul." 

Margaret  Fuller's  literary  significance  does  not  chiefly 
depend  upon  the  actual  writings  that  her  busy  hand 
turned  off.  As  the  underpaid,  overworked  editor  of 
the  "  aeriform  "  Dial  and,  later,  as  stated  contributor  of 


NATIONAL  ERA:   PROSE  THOUGHT 


critical  articles  to  the  New  York  Tribune,  whose  famous 
chief,  Horace  Greeley,  found  her  "  a  most  fearless  and 
unselfish  champion  of  truth  and  human  good  at  all  haz 
ards,"  she  accomplished  a  fair  amount  of  creditable 
work,  suggestive  rather  than  symmetrical,  but  her  inspir 
ing  personality  counted  for  more  than  her  best  para 
graphs.  Curious  reading  now  is  the  record  of  those 
Boston  "Conversations,"  where  Margaret  Fuller  dis 
cussed,  in  the  heart  of  the  Transcendental  camp,  the 
spiritual  significance  of  Greek  mythology.  There  were 
the  enthusiast,  George  Ripley,  and  his  martyr- wi  fe ; 
Hedge,  the  German  scholar;  Wheeler,  the  Greek 
scholar;  Story,  the  poet-sculptor;  Jones  Very,  the 
lyric  mystic ;  the  Peabody  sisters,  the  lovely  Elizabeth 
Hoar,  James  Freeman  Clarke,  Alcott,  and,  now  and 
then,  Emerson,  who  remembered  these  "as  a  fair, 
commanding  troop,  every  one  of  them  adorned  by  some 
splendor  of  beauty,  of  grace,  of  talent,  or  of  character." 
With  her  pen,  as  with  the  spoken  word,  Margaret,  as 
they  all  called  her,  was  serious,  strenuous,  but  neither 
soundly  learned  nor  essentially  aesthetic.  She  was  not  an 
artist  born,  and  her  education,  though  pursued  at  high 
pressure,  had  been  solitary  and  partial.  With  all  her 
courage,  the  years  had  weighed  heavily.  "  Her  face  is 
full  of  the  marks  of  pain,"  wrote  a  girlish  worshipper 
when  Margaret  was  thirty-one.  "  Young  as  I  am,  I  feel 
old  when  I  look  at  her."  Youth  and  sweetness  of  life 
came  to  that  craving  nature  in  far  Italy,  where,  like  Mrs. 
Browning,  she  made  the  cause  of  Italian  liberty  her  own. 


224  AMERICAN   LITERATURE  CHAP. 

Efficiently  and  tenderly  she  nursed  the  wounded  patriots 
in  hospital  during  the  siege  of  Rome  and  wrote  a  history 
of  the  short-lived  republic.  This  manuscript  was  lost  in 
that  tragic  shipwreck  which,  in  sight  of  the  American 
coast,  overwhelmed  her  brave  young  Italian  husband,  the 
Marquis  Ossoli,  their  little  son,  and  Margaret  herself. 
Her  principal  contribution  remaining  to  our  literature  is 
an  essay  on  Woman  in  the  Nineteenth  Century,  claiming 
for  women  that  larger  life  which  her  own  career  has  in  no 
small  measure  furthered. 

As  Emerson  represented  the  ideal  hope  of  Transcen 
dentalism,  and  Margaret  Fuller  embodied  its  "  holy  ear 
nestness,"  those  phases  of  the  movement  which  have  won 
it  the  title  of  "  a  Puritan  carnival "  are  suggested  in  the 
career  of  AMOS  BRONSON  ALCOTT.  A  farmer's  boy,  he 
began  life  as  a  Yankee  peddler,  but  soon  turned  to 
teaching,  for  which  he  showed  a  remarkable  aptitude. 
His  original  experiments  in  his  Connecticut  district 
school  were  often  in  line  with  the  new  educational  ideas 
of  Europe.  Encouraged  by  his  success,  Alcott  under 
took  to  teach  in  Boston,  where  he  fell  under  the  influence 
of  Channing,  Emerson,  and  Garrison.  He  became  an 
Abolitionist,  a  vegetarian,  and  "  a  large  piece  of  spiritual 
New  England."  Emerson  was  enthusiastic  in  Alcott's 
praise,  describing  him  as  "  a  man  who  cannot  write,  but 
whose  conversation  is  unrivalled  in  its  way ;  such  insight, 
such  discernment  of  spirits,  such  pure  intellectual  play, 
such  revolutionary  impulses  of  thought."  It  presently 
appeared,  unluckily  for  Mrs.  Alcott  and  the  little  girls, 


V  NATIONAL  ERA:   PROSE  THOUGHT  225 

that  this  new  Oracle  could  not  earn  a  living.  Heresy, 
Abolitionism,  and  debt  combined  to  break  up  the  Boston 
school.  The  solemn  sage,  whose  most  provoking  quality 
was  the  serious  way  in  which  he  took  himself,  then 
settled  at  Concord  in  a  little  cottage,  well-gardened,  where 
he  presented  the  figure,  according  to  the  admiring  Dr. 
Channing,  of  "Orpheus  at  the  plough,"  working  out 
among  the  neighbors  as  a  farm  hand  while  he  meditated 
those  nuggets  of  occult  wisdom  which  made  the  Orphic 
Sayings  of  the  Dial.  He  shared  Thoreau's  disgust  with 
government,  especially  in  its  function  of  taxation,  and 
Ripley's  eager  faith  in  community  life.  Brook  Farm, 
however,  was  not  to  Alcott's  mind.  Only  eight  miles 
from  Boston,  it  served  too  well  as  a  social  magnet,  and 
the  graces  of  life,  though  practised  in  shirt-sleeves  and 
aprons,  were  so  obvious  there  as  to  give  this  ascetic  sage 
the  impression,  which  Mrs.  Ripley  might  have  corrected, 
that  existence  at  Brook  Farm  was  "  miserable,  joyous, 
and  frivolous."  The  austere  Paradise  which  he  himself 
projected  was  called  Fruitlands.  Fourteen  sylvan  acres, 
about  twenty  miles  from  Concord,  served  as  the  site  of 
an  experiment  that  came  near  the  startling  end  of  sheer 
starvation.  Flesh,  fish,  eggs,  milk,  butter,  cheese,  tea, 
coffee,  rice,  molasses,  and  those  base  vegetables,  as  pota 
toes,  that  ripen  under  ground  were  all  forbidden.  Cloth 
ing  was  scanty  and,  theoretically,  white.  The  use  of 
manure  in  farming  was  rejected  as  an  insult  to  the  earth. 
The  rights  of  canker-worms  were  held  inviolate.  Driven 
by  grim  hunger  back  to  Concord,  Alcott,  after  a  season 
Q 


226  AMERICAN   LITERATURE  CHAP. 

of  humiliation,  took  up  a  Socratic  fashion  of  lecturing, 
known  as  "Conversations,"  by  which,  with  intervals  of 
rustic  carpentry,  he  managed  to  subsist.  Generous 
friends  made  up  his  deficits,  and  his  wife  bore  the  heavy 
burden  that  those  Transcendental  wives  carried  so 
smilingly,  until  her  merry-hearted  daughter,  Louisa,  took 
it  from  the  tired  shoulders  with  a  strong  hand. 

All  that  excited  laughter  and  impatience  in  New 
England  Transcendentalism  is  hinted  in  Alcott's  course, 
the  erratic  orbit  of  a  now  faded  star,  but  he  may  justly 
claim  a  place  in  Emerson's  defence  of  that  strange 
spiritual  brotherhood :  "  And  what  if  they  eat  clouds 
and  drink  wind,  they  have  not  been  without  service  to 
the  race  of  man."  This  Yankee  version  of  idealism 
is  of  immeasurable  value  as  a  protest,  still  great  in  our 
traditions,  against  the  sordid,  the  showy,  and  the  self- 
indulgent  elements  at  present  so  prominent  in  American 
life. 

The  chief  practical  issue  of  all  this  enthusiasm  for 
ideas  was  the  abolition  of  slavery.  New  England  took 
the  lead  in  that  fiery  reform  by  virtue  not  only  of  her 
Puritanic  earnestness,  but  of  her  Transcendental  courage. 
She  had,  with  Lincoln,  "  faith  that  right  makes  might." 
Wendell  Phillips  rejoiced  in  the  John  Brown  raid 
because,  as  h&  said,  "  twenty- two  men  have  been  found 
ready  to  die  for  an  idea."  But  in  the  actual  clash  of 
conflict  the  sages  gave  place  to  the  soldiers.  Tran 
scendentalism  was  seen  thenceforth  only  in  its  fruits. 
Theological  strife,  meanwhile,  had  quieted.  The  two 


V  NATIONAL  ERA:    PROSE  THOUGHT  22/ 

contending  pulpits  were  one  in  patriotism.  The  mag 
netic  eloquence  of  Henry  Ward  Beecher's  appeals  in 
Plymouth  Church  made  for  the  same  end  as  Edward 
Everett  Hale's  thrilling  tract  The  Man  without  a  Coun 
try.  During  the  latter  half  of  the  century,  Unitarianism 
has  been  less  aggressive.  Its  main  work,  as  affecting 
American  literature,  was  done  when  it  had  opened  the 
door  to  liberal  thought.  Now  the  door  stands  wide. 
The  higher  criticism  has  lost  its  terrors,  and  the  theory 
of  evolution,  as  held  in  England  by  Herbert  Spencer, 
has  been  disseminated  throughout  the  United  States 
by  John  Fiske's  crisp  presentation  in  his  Destiny  of  Man 
and  Idea  of  God.  The  enlargement  of  doctrine  has 
been  accompanied  by  an  enrichment  of  ritual,  due 
mainly  to  the  influence  of  the  Episcopal  church,  recog 
nizing  as  it  does  the  function  of  beauty  in  promoting 
and  interpreting  the  religious  aspiration. 

II.  Criticism  of  Society.  —  It  is  not  possible  to  make 
any  hard  and  fast  distinction  between  the  literature 
that  treats  of  the  inner  life  and  the  literature  that 
deals  with  the  expression  of  such  life  in  social  forms. 
From  Transcendentalism  sprang  Brook  Farm.  Yet  in 
general  the  thought  of  Emerson  is  focussed  on  spirit, 
while  the  thought  of  OLIVER  WENDELL  HOLMES  plays 
over  the  visible  surface  of  society.  Holmes'  novels,  it 
is  true,  are  directly  concerned  with  presenting,  from  a 
physician's  point  of  view,  the  problem  of  human  account 
ability.  How  far,  ask  these  books,  is  the  deed,  and 
the  choice  which  causes  the  deed,  determined  by 


228  AMERICAN   LITERATURE  CHAP. 

subtle  powers  beyond  the  personal  control?  Elsie 
Venner  studies  the  workings  of  ante-natal  snake-poison 
in  a  girl's  blood  and  brain.  Whose  was  the  evil  impulse  ? 
The  Guardian  Angel  suggests  a  hovering  circle  of 
ancestress  shadows,  the  two  faces  of  a  holy  martyr  and 
a  wild  Indian  most  distinct  in  that  cloudy  company, 
all  pressing  with  contending  influences  upon  one  maiden 
heart.  Is  the  individual  only  the  helpless  resultant  of 
heredity?  A  Mortal  Antipathy  sets  forth  the  affecting 
case  of  a  love-smitten  recluse  who  had  been  so  terrified 
in  babyhood  by  a  fall  from  the  arms  of  a  girl  that, 
thenceforward,  the  mere  sight  of  a  young  woman  literally 
frightened  him  almost  to  death.  For  once,  Holmes 
took  an  absurd  situation  seriously,  and  the  public 
laughed  in  the  wrong  place.  These  are  the  under 
lying  themes  of  his  stories,  but,  in  their  development, 
attention  is  largely  diverted  from  the  physiology  and 
psychology  involved  to  frank  and  lively  pictures  of 
New  England  village  life. 

Somewhat  the  same  may  be  said  of  the  famous  table- 
talk  series.  The  monologues  of  the  Autocrat  often 
recur  to  the  haunting  themes  of  heredity,  the  will  and 
moral  responsibility,  but  that  immortal  chat  runs  mainly 
on  such  matters  as  Republicanism,  Mutual  Admiration 
Societies,  horse-racing,  theatricals,  Lyceum  audiences, 
drunkenness,  tact,  meerschaums,  athletics,  dandies,  and 
the  guillotine.  The  breakfast-table  itself  is  a  little 
community,  where  the  social  obligations  and  affinities 
play  their  daily  part.  The  voluble  Autocrat,  the  old 


V  NATIONAL  ERA:   PROSE  THOUGHT  22Q 

gentleman  who  sat  opposite,  with  a  sentiment  shut 
inside  his  silver  watch,  the  divinity  student,  allowed 
to  "  take  a  certain  share  in  the  conversation,  so  far 
as  assent  or  pertinent  questions"  might  be  involved, 
that  reprehensible  young  man  answering  to  the  name 
of  John,  the  landlady  who  stirred  the  puddings,  while 
her  daughter  with  the  long  ringlets  played  the  ac 
cordion,  little  Benjamin  Franklin,  the  poor  relation  in 
black  bombazine,  and  the  school- mis  tress,  sweet  as 
the  tea-rose  which,  in  the  last  chapter,  the  happy  Auto 
crat  makes  her  wear  over  the  copper  breast-pin  that 
was  red-armed  Biddy's  wedding-gift, — all  these  are 
members  of  a  social  whole,  though  that  whole  is  only 
a  boarding-house.  It  is  for  these,  in  good  part,  that 
the  book  is  loved.  The  personalities  lend  flavor  to  the 
opinions.  Pervading  all  is  that  rare  social  genius  of 
the  Doctor  himself.  He  could,  when  he  chose,  talk 
quite  as  well  as  the  Autocrat  and  radiate  as  genial  and 
urbane  an  atmosphere.  Lowell  felt  the  unique  quality 
in  Holmes  and  based  his  own  acceptance  of  the 
Atlantic  editorship  on  the  condition  of  regular  contri 
butions  from  the  merry  little  sage  of  Beacon  Hill. 

Close  upon  "  the  five-barred  gate  "  though  he  was,  the 
poet-professor  struck  out  on  his  new  style  with  all  the 
freshness  of  a  boy.  In  the  first  number  of  the  magazine 
began  The  Autocrat  of  the  Breakfast-  Table.  It  had  come 
from  his  mind,  said  Holmes,  "  almost  with  an  explosion, 
like  the  champagne  cork,"  and  it  popped  at  once  into 
high  favor  with  the  public.  The  novelty,  the  drollery, 


230  AMERICAN   LITERATURE  CHAP. 

the  wit  and  wisdom  of  it,  took  the  reading-world  by 
storm.  America  had  a  new  prose  classic.  "The  Profes 
sor  at  the  Breakfast-Table,"  in  the  author's  own  account, 
"followed  immediately  on  the  heels  of  the  Autocrat. 
The  Professor  was  the  alter  ego  of  the  first  personage. 
In  the  earlier  series  he  had  played  a  secondary  part,  and 
in  this  second  series  no  great  effort  was  made  to  create 
a  character  wholly  unlike  the  first.  The  Professor  was 
more  outspoken,  however,  on  religious  subjects,  and 
brought  down  a  good  deal  of  hard  language  on  himself 
and  the  author  to  whom  he  owed  his  existence."  Around 
this  second  breakfast- table  still  sat  some  of  the  Autocrat's 
companions,  —  the  old  gentleman  opposite,  the  divinity 
student,  the  landlady  and  her  daughter,  Benjamin  Frank 
lin,  the  Bombazine,  and  the  young  man  called  John,  but 
certain  more  romantic  boarders  had  been  added  to  the 
group.  The  Professor  talked  less  than  the  Autocrat,  and 
not  so  well,  but  he  was  a  better  listener  and  observer. 
He  detected  the  unsavory  traits  of  the  Koh-i-noor  with 
the  purple-black  moustache,  dreaded  the  Model  of  all  the 
Virtues,  and  followed  with  wide-awake  sympathy  the  love 
story  of  Iris  and  the  young  Marylander,  interwoven  as  it 
was  with  the  pitiful  end  of  Little  Boston,  "  the  misshapen 
little  creature  covered  with  Nature's  insults."  The  Poet 
of  the  Breakfast-  Table  appeared  some  fifteen  years  after 
its  predecessors,  being,  the  author  said,  "  not  so  much  a 
continuation  as  a  resurrection."  The  boarding-house, 
made  famous  by  Autocrat  and  Professor,  had  now  become 
select.  A  bequest  from  the  old  gentleman  had  enabled 


v  NATIONAL  ERA:    PROSE  THOUGHT  231 

the  landlady  to  wear  a  smart  cap  and  educate  Benjamin 
Franklin  for  a  physician.  The  people  for  whom  she 
poured  the  coffee  were  representative  of  Boston  culture. 
There  were  the  Master  of  Arts,  the  Man  of  Letters,  the 
Scarabee,  and  the  young  Astronomer,  destined  to  find  his 
guiding  stars,  at  last,  in  the  eyes  of  poor  little  Schehere- 
zade,  who  lived  by  scribbling  stories  for  the  Weekly  Biicket. 
The  Member  of  the  House,  the  Capitalist,  the  Lady,  the 
Register  of  Deeds,  the  Salesman,  and  That  Boy,  with  his 
inspired  pop-gun,  lent  variety.  The  talk,  no  less  pungent 
than  before,  was  richer  and  more  mellow,  ranging  over 
literature,  science,  metaphysics,  music,  the  learned  profes 
sions,  authorship,  sects,  germs,  freaks,  time,  and  eternity. 
The  boarding-house  was  closed  forever,  the  breakfast- 
table  hushed,  but  once  again,  when  his  years  numbered 
eighty-one,  the  inimitable  talker  met  his  friends,  this 
time  Over  the  Tea- Cups.  The  tone  here  is  personal 
and  reminiscent.  Sunset  lights  fall  upon  the  tea-table, 
where  a  poem  always  waits,  tucked  into  the  silver 
sugar-bowl,  but  there  is  no  abatement  of  the  old-time 
mirth  and  kind  sagacity.  The  thread  of  story  droops 
more  loosely  than  before,  but  the  various  "Tea-cups," 
the  choicest  china  of  Beacon  Hill  and  Cambridge, 
are  individualized,  and  Number  Seven  has  his  conversa 
tional  innings  no  less  than  the  Dictator.  "  The  cracked 
tea-cup  brings  out  the  ring  of  the  sound  ones  as  nothing 
else  does.  Remember  also  that  the  soundest  tea-cup 
does  not  always  hold  the  best  tea,  nor  the  cracked  tea 
cup  the  worst." 


232  AMERICAN   LITERATURE  CHAP. 

In  their  own  discursive,  friendly,  but  keen  and  fearless 
fashion,  these  four  books,  which  span  a  generation,  try 
New  England  on  the  three  charges  of  deficient  breeding, 
intellectual  illiberality,  and  religious  intolerance.  Holmes 
was  something  of  an  aristocrat,  more  of  a  rationalist,  and, 
most,  a  humanitarian.  In  him  the  Unitarian  reaction 
had  been  emphasized  by  scientific  training.  He  was  an 
anti-mystic,  standing  for  the  sunny  and  the  sensible. 
There  was  more  of  Franklin  in  him  than  of  Edwards. 
He  was  a  Bostonian  to  the  core ;  the  civilization  he 
depicts  is  a  Yankee  civilization,  growing  in  refinement 
through  the  four  books,  and  the  controversies  into 
which  he  enters  are  eminently  New  England  contro 
versies,  already  passing  into  history  by  the  time  the  last 
of  the  table-talk  series  appeared. 

The  achievement  of  Holmes  has  not  been  duplicated. 
The  trenchant  writings  of  Mary  Abigail  Dodge,  better 
known  as  Gail  Hamilton,  and  the  light-hand  essays  of 
Robert  Grant  should  not  be  forgotten,  but  now  that 
realistic  fiction  is  the  fashion,  studies  of  our  present-day 
society  usually  take  form  as  novels.  A  conspicuous 
instance  of  this  is  the  recent  work  of  CHARLES  DUD 
LEY  WARNER,  a  natural  essayist  and  most  delightful  hu 
morist,  who,  with  the  late  Mrs.  Stowe,  "  Mark  Twain," 
and  the  poet,  Richard  Burton,  has  continued  the  liter 
ary  tradition  of  Hartford.  In  A  Little  Journey  in  the 
World  and  The  Golden  House  we  have  essentially  an 
arraignment  of  the  wealthy  class  of  New  York  on  counts 
of  selfishness,  falseness,  and  materialism.  Story-interest 


v  NATIONAL  ERA:   PROSE  THOUGHT  233 

is  subordinate  to  interest  of  scene  and  character.  Pict 
ures  of  the  Exchange,  the  opera,  the  millionnaire  palace, 
the  midnight  Bohemia,  the  elaborate  social  functions, 
stand  in  shamed  contrast  beside  the  tawdry,  tragic 
glimpses  of  the  East  Side.  The  figures  of  the  Wall- 
Street  Napoleon,  the  gay  ladies  with  their  wines  and 
cigarettes  and  serpentine  dances,  the  gilded  spend 
thrifts  making  a  task  of  idleness,  are  confronted  by 
ascetic  priest  and  hard-working  doctor  of  the  poor, 
by  honest,  thoughtful  men  and  faithful  women,  and  the 
dim,  terrible  majority  living  and  dying  in  the  slums. 
This  new  criticism  of  our  new  phase  of  democracy,  find 
ing  indirect  expression  in  novel  and  short  story,  has 
direct  expression,  also,  and  that  in  overwhelming  bulk. 
The  yearly  issue  of  sociological  studies,  economic  dis 
cussions,  labor  reports,  reform  pamphlets,  socialist  tracts, 
and  the  like  chokes  the  press,  but  all  this  mass  of 
academic  treatise  and  popular  polemics  falls  outside  the 
pale  of  literature.  The  works  of  Edward  Bellamy  may 
be  mentioned  here,  although  their  guise  is  that  of  fic 
tion.  His  Looking  Backward  sells  by  hundreds  of 
thousands  and  has  been  translated  into  nearly  every 
European  tongue.  Like  its  recent  successor,  Equality, 
the  book  forecasts  an  American  Utopia,  but  fails  to 
point  the  way. 

III.  Criticism  of  Letters. — The  critic  is  the  middle 
man  of  literature.  He  mediates  between  writers  and 
readers,  making  his  own  profit  out  of  the  transaction. 
Of  his  legitimate  functions,  one  is  that  of  the  herald. 


234  AMERICAN    LITERATURE  CHAP. 

He  may  announce  a  fresh  influence  in  letters,  as  when  the 
elder  Dana  called  our  belated  attention  to  the  Lake  School 
Poets ;  but  in  the  earlier  half  of  the  century  it  was  oftener 
the  task  of  the  American  critic  to  introduce  to  his  coun 
trymen  the  standard  literatures  of  the  Old  World.  At 
Harvard,  Everett  stood  for  Greece,  and  Ticknor  for 
Spain,  as  Norton  now  stands  for  Italy.  A  more  delicate 
office  entrusted  to  criticism  is  the  estimate  of  new  values, 
the  judgment  of  contemporary  books,  and  the  ranking  of 
living  men.  Here  the  critics  are  commonly  wrong,  as 
time  has  a  cynical  way  of  showing.  Poe  was  irritated 
beyond  measure  by  the  provincial  overpraise  that  char 
acterized  American  reviews  of  American  productions, 
yet  with  all  his  natural  acumen  he  could  not  himself 
maintain  the  cosmopolitan  tone.  Few  are  the  names 
even  recognized  to-day  out  of  the  list  of  New  York 
literati  he  commended.  There  is,  too,  a  dilettante 
criticism,  which  uses  a  book  as  a  text,  or  pretext,  for  an 
independent  essay  aiming  at  pure  entertainment.  This, 
a  late  development  in  American  letters,  is  well  ex 
emplified  by  the  brilliant  brevities  of  Agnes  Repplier. 
The  "  short  studies  "  of  Hamilton  Wright  Mabie,  our 
latest  evangelist  of  culture,  approximate  rather,  in  spirit, 
if  not  in  scope,  to  that  larger  criticism,  interpreta 
tive  and  comprehensive,  which  in  our  present  cen 
tury  began  with  EDWIN  PERCY  WHIPPLE,  rose  to  its 
height  in  JAMES  RUSSELL  LOWELL,  and  is  still  strongly 
maintained  by  EDMUND  CLARENCE  STEDMAN.  Of  these, 
Lowell  alone  has  claims  to  rank  beside  the  chief  critics 


V  NATIONAL  ERA:    PROSE  THOUGHT  235 

of  contemporary  Europe,  but  Whipple's  frank  and  lucid 
lectures  hold  a  permanent  place  in  American  regard, 
while  editions  still  multiply  of  Stedman's  Victorian 
Poets  and  Poets  of  America. 

Lowell's  most  valuable  prose  is  contained  in  his  three 
main  volumes  of  critical  essays,  —  My  Study  Windows 
and  the  first  and  second  series  of  Among  My  Books. 
At  twenty-six  he  had  published  Conversations  on  Some 
of  the  Old  Poets,  principally  Chaucer,  Chapman,  and 
Ford.  This  little  book  had  in  it  so  much  of  his  charac 
teristic  fervor  and  keenness  that  he  was  tempted,  thirty 
years  later,  to  reprint  it,  but  decided,  not  unwisely,  that 
it  was  too  immature.  Lowell's  second  rolume  of  prose, 
Fireside  Studies,  was  made  up,  like  the  three  important 
books  which  followed  it,  of  magazine  articles,  but  the 
lighter  ones  were  garnered  first.  In  later  life,  after  his 
diplomatic  career  had  rendered  authorship  subordinate 
to  statesmanship,  Lowell  issued  two  collections  of  his 
public  addresses  and  political  essays.  These  enhanced 
American  pride  in  our  distinguished  minister,  and  re 
lieved  the  national  alarm  lest  he  might  fall  a  victim  to 
Anglomania  or  other  feudal  malady.  He  urged,  how 
ever,  that  democracy  has  not  justified  itself  until  it  has 
made  itself  gracious  and  winsome,  produced  the  noblest 
types  of  manhood,  and  lifted  life  above  the  merely 
material  and  commonplace.  His  experience  of  Euro 
pean  governments  confirmed  his  loyalty  to  the  Republic. 
"  No  other  method  of  conducting  the  affairs  of  men," 
he  said,  "  is  so  capable  of  sloughing  off  its  peccant  parts 


236  AMERICAN   LITERATURE  CHAP. 

as  ours,  because  in  no  other  are  the  forces  of  life  at  once 
so  intense  and  so  universally  distributed."  Throughout 
his  course  Lowell  set  a  high  example  of  the  Scholar  in 
Politics,  maintaining  under  partisan  strain  and  din  a 
clear  intelligence,  moral  courage,  and  incisive  utterance 
which  went  far  toward  stimulating  and  directing  the 
patriotic  passion  of  the  land.  His  concluding  volumes 
of  prose,  small  harvests,  but  ripe  and  sweet,  reverted  to 
literature. 

The  range  of  the  literary  essays  embraced  in  My  Study 
Windows  and  Among  My  Books  is  wide.  The  four  for 
eign  languages  pertaining  to  Lowell's  Harvard  chair, 
French,  German,  Spanish,  Italian,  all  of  which,  he  gayly 
asserted,  he  spoke  "  like  a  native  (of  Cambridge),"  might 
point  to  these  pages  for  proof  that  he  read  them,  at 
least,  like  a  native  of  Parnassus.  Here  we  have  the 
acute  studies  of  Rousseau  and  Lessing,  and  the  great 
essay  upon  Dante,  supplemented,  later  on,  by  the  Don 
Quixote  address.  Few  men  have  written  better  of 
Shakespeare ;  no  man  so  well  of  Chaucer.  To  read 
Lowell's  essays  comprehendingly  is  a  literary  education 
in  itself. 

His  method,  although  in  reality  searching,  is  not  logi 
cally  direct,  but  discursive.  Like  a  boy  on  his  way  to 
school,  he  is  tempted  to  explore  every  pasture  the  path 
crosses  and  follow  up  every  stream.  Lowell  was  too 
wide-awake,  too  warm-hearted,  too  vital,  to  keep  strictly 
within  the  orderly  limits  of  his  theme.  His  tempera 
ment  was  too  robust,  moreover,  for  the  finest  sensitive- 


V  NATIONAL  ERA:   PROSE  THOUGHT  237 

ness.  He  did  better  by  Dryden  than  by  Spenser.  And 
his  style,  by  virtue  of  this  same  exuberance  of  life,  is  so 
charged  with  metaphor  as  to  bring  down  upon  it  an  Eng 
lish  cry  of  "  flashy."  For  this  figurative  excess,  this  flush 
and  fulness  more  attractive  still  to  many  readers  than  the 
cold  clarity  of  Arnold's  prose,  Lowell  was  doubtless  much 
indebted  to  his  Elizabethan  studies.  His  taste  is  most 
open  to  attack,  when  he  is  in  mischievous  mood.  Then 
no  pun  is  too  bad  for  him  to  perpetrate.  In  the  Milton 
essay,  for  instance,  Lowell  often  foregoes  due  critical  deco 
rum  for  sheer  fun  and  frolic.  But  when  his  metaphors 
spring  from  that  swift  imaginative  sympathy,  which  con 
stitutes  one  of  his  strongest  charms,  the  fault-finder,  how 
ever  well  taken  his  point  of  literary  objection  may  be, 
feels  himself  at  a  human  disadvantage.  Speaking,  for 
example,  in  his  Harvard  address,  of  the  effect  of  ancient 
memories  in  places  "  on  which  Time  has  laid  his  hand 
only  in  benediction,"  Lowell,  in  a  passage  open  to  stylis 
tic  and  even  grammatical  reproach,  sweetens  poetic 
thought  with  feeling  reverent  and  tender  :  "  For  myself, 
I  never  felt  the  working  of  this  spell  so  acutely  as  in 
those  gray  seclusions  of  the  college  quadrangles  and 
cloisters  at  Oxford  and  Cambridge,  conscious  with  ven 
erable  associations,  and  whose  very  stones  seemed  hap 
pier  for  being  there.  The  chapel  pavement  still  whispered 
with  the  blessed  feet  of  that  long  procession  of  saints  and 
sages  and  scholars  and  poets,  who  are  all  gone  into  a 
world  of  light,  but  whose  memories  seem  to  consecrate 
the  soul  from  all  ignobler  companionship." 


238  AMERICAN   LITERATURE  CHAP. 

The  English  scholarship  represented  by  Longfellow 
and  Lowell,  broad,  aesthetic,  humanized,  is  already  out  of 
date.  The  German  training  has  given  to  American  uni 
versities  philologists  in  place  of  poets.  The  new  schol 
arship  is  superior  to  the  old  in  linguistic  accuracy,  in 
exactitude  of  detail,  but  bears  fruit  in  erudite  editions 
of  old  English  texts  rather  than  in  fresh  creations  of 
literary  art.  An  American  veteran  here  is  George  P. 
Marsh,  who  turned  attention  to  the  sources  of  our 
speech.  The  researches  of  William  D.  Whitney  of  Yale 
have  borne  upon  language  at  large,  but  his  special  ser 
vices  to  English  grammar  and  lexicography  should  not 
be  ignored.  Chief  editor  of  the  Century  Dictionary,  to 
him,  too,  it  fell  to  revise  the  work  of  that  dauntless 
pioneer,  Noah  Webster,  whose  spelling-book  has  sold 
its  sixty  millions.  A  limited  amount  of  historical  and 
aesthetic  criticism  still  comes  from  college  chairs,  as 
Thomas  R.  Lounsbury's  Chaucer,  Vida  D.  Scudder's 
Modern  English  Poets,  and  Moses  Coit  Tyler's  History 
of  American  Literature.  The  monumental  work  of  Pro 
fessor  Child  is  priceless  to  the  ballad-lover,  while  students 
of  the  American  stage  depend  on  Professor  Matthews 
no  less  than  on  Laurence  Hutton  and  William  Winter. 
Although  our  original  plays  are  of  little  value,  no  branch 
of  English  scholarship  has  been  pursued  here  with  more 
zeal  and  ability  than  the  study  of  Shakespeare.  Brown 
ing  has  his  societies,  and  Walt  Whitman  his  "  fellowship," 
but  Shakespeare  has  a  shining  line  of  American  editors 
and  commentators,  reaching  from  Verplanck,  a  genuine 


V  NATIONAL  ERA:    PROSE  THOUGHT  239 

Knickerbocker,  through   Grant  White,    Hudson,   Rolfe, 
Furness,  to  the  recent  work  of  Barrett  Wendell. 

IV.  History.  — There  is  no  branch  of  American  schol 
arship  whose  progress  reflects  the  changing  conditions 
apparent  in  our  life  and  arts  more  clearly  than  history. 
The  seventeenth  century  chroniclers,  Captain  John  Smith 
in  the  South,  Governors  Bradford  and  Winthrop  in  New 
England,  did  little  more  than  jot  down  a  narrative, 
founded  on  their  own  observation  and  on  hearsay,  for 
the  plain  purpose  of  news-telling  or  record-keeping.  In 
the  eighteenth  century,  Beverly  and  Stith  of  Virginia,  Cot 
ton  Mather,  Prince,  and  Hutchinson  of  Massachusetts,  in 
varying  degree  approached  the  modern  conception  of 
historical  method,  striving  by  patient  investigation  and 
judicial  attitude  to  sift  truth  from  falsehood,  and  re 
create  the  past.  The  War  of  the  Revolution  and  the 
War  of  1812  showed  no  immediate  results  in  historical 
writing,  although  Chief  Justice  Marshall's  Life  of  Wash 
ington,  our  first  American  biography  of  scope  and  dig 
nity,  has  historical  values.  But  histories  of  individual 
states,  as  Belknap's  New  Hampshire,  began  to  appear, 
and,  in  one  city  after  another,  historical  societies  were 
formed  for  the  collection  and  preservation  of  local  mate 
rials.  The  antiquarian  was  gradually  evolved.  President 
Sparks  of  Harvard,  editor  of  many  volumes  of  Washing- 
tonian  and  other  Revolutionary  correspondence,  had  led 
the  way  in  original  research,  hunting  through  govern 
mental  archives,  at  home  and  abroad,  and  through  stores 
of  family  papers.  The  influence  of  Washington  Irving, 


24O  AMERICAN   LITERATURE  CHAP. 

in  his  biographies  and  historical  narratives,  which  were 
often,  although  not  always,  founded  upon  first-hand 
authorities,  made  for  vivacity  and  grace  of  historical 
style.  The  second  division  of  the  century,  that  middle 
period  in  which  American  literature  reached  the  highest 
point  as  yet  attained,  is  the  day  of  our  four  great  histo 
rians,  Bancroft,  Prescott,  Motley,  and  Parkman.  Men  of 
prodigious  toils  and,  in  case  of  the  last  three,  of  rare 
artistic  skill  in  composition,  they  produced  rich,  well- 
rounded  works.  Bancroft  wrote  directly  of  the  United 
States,  but  the  others  chose  semi-foreign  themes,  bearing 
on  their  own  country,  but  allowing  of  picturesque  and 
dramatic  treatment.  The  Civil  War  brought  out  a  crop 
of  partisan  accounts  from  the  leaders  in  arms  or  politics, 
as  Wilson  and  Greeley  in  the  North,  Davis  and  Stephens 
in  the  South.  The  autobiographies  of  Grant,  Sher 
man,  and  Sheridan  were  eagerly  received  by  the  public. 
Lincoln's  private  secretaries,  Hay  and  Nicolay,  united  in 
an  elaborate  political  biography  of  their  chief.  Illus 
trated  war  papers,  descriptions  of  battles  and  campaigns, 
and  personal  reminiscences  of  military  service,  are  still 
a  feature  of  the  magazines,  especially  of  the  Century. 
Historical  fiction  is  coming  into  fashion.  But  with  all 
this  popularization  of  history,  on  the  one  hand,  univer 
sity  studies,  on  the  other,  have  been  growing  ever  more 
scientific  and  more  highly  specialized.  The  tendency  is 
increasingly  toward  original  research,  toward  the  minute 
investigation  of  carefully  limited  fields,  usually  far  from 
romantic.  The  monograph  is  in  the  saddle.  Sociology 


v  NATIONAL  ERA:   PROSE  THOUGHT  24! 

and  economics,  with  their  stress  on  institutions,  affect 
the  study  of  history.  An  extremely  modern  phenom 
enon,  of  a  somewhat  different  order,  is  in  evidence 
in  California,  where  Hubert  H.  Bancroft,  a  successful 
publisher,  has  pushed  the  business  method  into  author 
ship.  At  the  cost  of  over  half  a  million  dollars  and  over 
half  a  lifetime,  with  the  aid  of  a  large  staff  of  trained 
assistants,  he  has  collected  and  sifted  invaluable  mate 
rials,  which  have  been  but  partially  used  for  the  thirty- 
nine  volumes  of  his  History  of  the  Pacific  States.  This 
signal  application  of  the  cooperative  system  has  necessa 
rily  resulted  in  a  mammoth  quarry  rather  than  an  archi 
tectural  creation.  The  editorial  and  original  labors  of 
Justin  Winsor  and  the  constitutional  studies  of  James 
Schouler  are  achievements  of  note.  John  Fiske  already 
ranks  with  the  artists  in  historical  narrative.  Biography 
profits  by  the  new  critical  spirit,  while  its  popular  appeal 
holds  it  to  attractiveness  of  form.  To  the  Library  of 
American  Biography,  edited  by  Jared  Sparks,  has  suc 
ceeded  the  American  Men  of  Letters  Series,  edited  by 
Charles  Dudley  Warner,  and  the  American  Statesmen 
Series,  edited  by  John  T.  Morse. 

The  heroic  quality  of  scholarship  is  nobly  exemplified 
by  that  quartette  of  historians  whose  names  America 
holds  in  peculiar  honor.  GEORGE  BANCROFT,  a  Massa 
chusetts  man  who  supplemented  his  Harvard  degree  by  a 
doctorate  from  Gottingen,  passed  his  life  largely  in  the 
public  service,  holding  the  successive  appointments  of 
Collector  of  the  Port  of  Boston,  Secretary  of  the  Navy, 


242  AMERICAN   LITERATURE  CHAP. 

Minister  to  Great  Britain,  to  Russia,  and  to  Germany ; 
yet  in  his  patriotic  purpose  of  writing  the  history  of  his 
country  he  never  wavered.  Wherever,  in  American  citi«s 
or  at  foreign  capitals,  his  political  duties  had  placed  him, 
he  might  be  found  ransacking  the  dustiest  hoards  of 
libraries  or,  in  the  pigeon-holed  recesses  of  government 
buildings,  straining  his  eyesight  over  yellow  files  of  jeal 
ously  guarded  documents.  Into  his  History  of  the  United 
States,  covering  the  Colonial  and  Revolutionary  periods 
only,  he  poured  the  researches  and  studies  of  some  sixty 
arduous  years.  The  first  two  volumes  came  out  in  Jack 
son's  administration,  the  completed  work  half  a  century 
later.  His  partiality  for  Jefferson  and  democracy  called 
forth  a  competitive,  but  inferior,  history  by  Richard  Hil- 
dreth,  whose  bias  was  Whig.  Bancroft's  masterpiece  is 
no  easy  reading,  but  its  exhaustive  method,  accurate 
detail,  and  massive  build  give  it  a  well-won  preeminence. 
WILLIAM  HICKLING  PRESCOTT,  of  Salem  birth,  entered 
Harvard  a  few  years  in  advance  of  Bancroft.  There  he 
met  with  a  grievous  mishap.  During  a  moment  of  stu 
dent  frolic  in  the  dining-hall,  Prescott  was  struck  full 
upon  the  eyeball  by  a  flying  crust  of  bread.  He  gradu 
ally  became  almost  blind,  but  turned  his  own  dimness 
into  glowing  color  for  the  world.  A  moderate  fortune 
made  him  master  of  his  time  and,  after  long  thought,  he 
decided  to  take  up  the  work  of  an  historian.  Choosing 
for  his  subject  Spain  in  her  proud  hour  of  American  dis 
covery  and  dominion,  he  strove  for  twenty  years  against 
the  stupendous  difficulties  of  his  task.  He  could  not 


v  NATIONAL  ERA:   PROSE  THOUGHT  243 

read  for  himself  nor,  until  he  had  invented  a  frame  that 
guided  his  hand,  write  for  himself.  He  could  not 
consult  Spanish  libraries  nor  search  Spanish  archives, 
save  as  his  friends,  travelling  abroad,  were  glad  to  render 
what  uncertain  aid  they  might.  But  during  the  second 
span  of  twenty  years,  from  1837  to  1857,  he  produced  a 
series  of  brilliant  histories,  Ferdinand  and  Isabella,  Con 
quest  of  Mexico,  Conquest  of  Peru,  Reign  of  Philip  II. 
These  books  were  devoured  by  the  public  like  romances, 
which,  in  fact,  they  much  resemble.  Prescott's  attention 
was  fastened  upon  the  spectacle  of  life.  He  filled  his 
wide  canvas  with  splendid  masses  of  figures,  scenes  of 
court  and  camp  and  tropical  forest,  battle-fields  and 
strange  barbaric  pomp.  Yet  there  was  unity  to  the 
great  design,  and  beauty  of  detail.  The  methods  of 
work  enforced  by  his  disability  aided  rather  than  hin 
dered  the  pictorial  conception.  His  secretaries,  blun 
dering  sadly  over  the  Spanish,  would  read  to  him  day 
after  day  and  week  after  week,  until  his  mind  was  fully 
stored.  Then  from  the  lonely  brooding  of  the  blind 
would  leap  the  vivid  chapter.  A  gentleman  to  the 
heart,  magnanimities  cluster  about  his  memory.  It 
was  as  natural  to  help  him  as  it  was  for  him  to  help. 
Irving,  an  earlier  worker  in  the  Spanish  field,  had  gath 
ered  in  Spain  materials  for  a  history  of  the  Mexican  con 
quest,  but  on  hearing  that  Prescott  was  planning  to  write 
on  the  same  theme,  he  not  only  quietly  abandoned  his 
own  design,  but  put  all  his  data  at  the  younger  man's 
disposal.  How  worthy  Prescott  was  of  the  sacrifice  is 


244  AMERICAN   LITERATURE  CHAP. 

proved  by  the  frank  welcome  and  introduction  he  in 
turn  accorded  to  a  junior  rival,  JOHN  LOTHROP  MOTLEY. 

In  1850  the  blind  historian,  in  the  prime  of  his  life 
and  labors,  received  a  call  from  a  young  man  then 
unknown  to  fame.  Motley,  born  in  Dorchester,  a 
suburb  of  Boston,  had  supplemented  his  Harvard  course 
by  two  years  at  Berlin  and  Gottingen.  Strikingly  hand 
some,  brilliant  and  ambitious,  he  made  his  first  bid  for 
distinction  with  a  Byronesque  novel  in  two  volumes. 
This  was  a  flat  failure,  but  he  followed  it  up  with  the 
historical  romance  of  Merry  Mount.  Meanwhile  his 
American  passion  for  freedom,  his  Puritan  enthusiasm 
for  the  struggle  of  Protestantism  against  Romanism, 
had  turned  his  thoughts  to  Holland.  "  I  had  not  first 
made  up  my  mind  to  write  a  history,"  he  said,  "  and 
then  cast  about  to  take  up  a  subject.  My  subject  had 
taken  me  up,  drawn  me  on,  and  absorbed  me  into  itself. 
It  was  necessary  for  me,  it  seemed,  to  write  the  book  I 
had  been  thinking  much  of,  even  if  it  were  destined  to 
fall  dead  from  the  press,  and  I  had  no  inclination  or 
interest  to  write  any  other."  This  work  which  Motley 
thirsted  to  undertake  would  entrench  upon  the  ground 
of  Prescott's  Philip  //.,  announced  but  not  as  yet  begun. 
On  hearing  of  the  announcement,  Motley,  as  soon  as  he 
could  rally  from  the  keenness  of  his  disappointment, 
went  to  Prescott,  offering  to  surrender  his  own  plans, 
but  the  veteran  smiled  on  his  scruples,  gave  him  the 
most  disinterested  encouragement  and  cheer,  offered 
him  the  use  of  his  own  library  and,  in  the  preface  to 


v  NATIONAL  ERA:   PROSE  THOUGHT  245 

Philip  II.,  generously  heralded  the  new  historian,  calling 
attention  to  Motley's  forthcoming  work,  which  would, 
he  said,  elaborate  what  was  merely  an  episode  of  the 
book  in  hand.  With  the  eager  patience  of  a  born  in 
vestigator,  Motley  toiled  for  years  in  the  libraries  and 
state  archives  of  western  Europe,  his  zest  in  the  pursuit 
of  truth  transforming  drudgery  into  delight.  "What 
ever  may  be  the  result  of  my  labor,"  he  wrote,  "nobody 
can  say  that  I  have  not  worked  like  a  brute  beast,  but  I 
don't  care  for  the  result.  The  labor  is  in  itself  its  own 
reward,  and  all  I  want."  Motley's  design  was  to  write 
the  full  drama  of  that  momentous  epoch  from  the  ab 
dication  of  Charles  V.  to  the  Peace  of  Westphalia, 
naming  his  three  acts  the  Rise  of  the  Dutch  Republic, 
History  of  the  United  Netherlands,  and  the  Thirty 
Years'  War.  The  first,  published  in  1856,  scored  an 
immediate  success,  attested  by  large  sales  in  England 
and  America,  universal  plaudits,  and  prompt  translation 
into  Dutch,  German,  French,  and  Russian.  The  second 
division  of  the  great  history  was  interrupted  by  the  agita 
tions  of  our  Civil  War  and  by  public  duties.  Motley 
served  as  Minister  to  Austria  under  Lincoln,  but  was 
ill-treated  by  Johnson  and  resigned.  Upon  the  com 
pletion  of  the  United  Netherlands,  he  was  appointed 
by  Grant  Minister  to  England,  only  to  experience  the 
indignity  of  a  prompt  recall.  Heartsore  over  these 
affronts,  he  turned  to  the  writing  of  John  of  Barnevelt 
as  a  preliminary  to  the  last  third  of  his  famous  work, 
but  the  introductory  study  was  hardly  published  when 


246  AMERICAN   LITERATURE  CHAP. 

Mrs.  Motley  died.  From  this  blow  he  could  not  rally. 
The  Thirty  Years'  War  was  never  penned.  Motley's 
high  rank  as  an  historian  is  secure.  As  searching  as 
Bancroft,  as  graphic  as  Fresco tt,  he  outwent  them  both 
in  comprehension  of  character,  in  dramatic  quality,  and 
impassioned  force.  He  was  too  intense  a  lover  of  liberty 
and  virtue  to  be  quite  impartial.  William  the  Silent  was 
his  hero,  and  Philip  II.  his  villain,  but  what  prejudice 
he  had  was  always  of  a  noble  sort. 

The  youngest  of  these  four  historians,  FRANCIS  PARK- 
MAN,  was  of  the  same  manly  calibre  as  the  others,  and 
has,  perhaps,  wrought  a  more  enduring  fabric.  He  was 
a  Boston  boy,  of  the  best  Massachusetts  ancestry.  Re 
flecting  the  changing  times,  his  great-grandfather  had 
stood  in  the  Congregational  pulpit,  his  father  in  the 
Unitarian.  The  intervening  grandfather,  one  of  the  old 
Jamaica  merchants,  had  been  of  secular  service  in  mak 
ing  the  family  fortune.  As  a  child,  Parkman  was  capti 
vated  by  stories  of  the  early  New  England  settlements, 
with  their  struggle  against  the  wilderness  and  the  red- 
man,  and  he  was  only  a  Harvard  sophomore  when  the 
purpose  of  writing  the  history  of  the  French  and  Indian 
War  took  firm  possession  of  his  mind.  His  special 
preparation  was  of  his  own  devising.  He  spent  his 
vacations  camping  and  canoeing,  and,  in  term,  gave  a 
goodly  share  of  his  time  to  practising  the  swift  walk  of  the 
Indian,  to  feats  of  horsemanship  and  rifle-shooting.  An 
injury  suffered  in  the  gymnasium  gave  excuse  for  a  voyage 
to  Italy,  where,  at  Rome,  he  sought  and  secured  lodging 


Reproduced  from  the  fine  steel  plate  in  "  The 
Library  of  American  Literature,"  by  permission 
of  the  publisher,  William  Evarts  Benjamin. 


v  NATIONAL  ERA:   PROSE  THOUGHT  247 

in  a  monastery,  that  he  might  study  the  priests.  Two 
years  after  taking  his  degree,  he  elected  a  graduate 
course  among  the  Black  Hills  of  Dakota.  With  an 
equally  adventurous  cousin,  he  started  from  St.  Louis 
on  the  emigrant  trail  in  the  spring  of  1846.  "My 
business,"  said  Parkman,  "  was  observation,  and  I  was 
willing  to  pay  dearly  for  the  opportunity  of  exercising 
it,"  as  indeed  he  did.  For  a  long  summer  the  young 
men  lived  in  the  saddle,  rifle  in  hand,  among  Indians, 
half-breeds,  and  trappers,  even  taking  up  their  abode, 
at  last,  in  a  village  of  savage  Sioux,  with  whom  they 
smoked  and  slept,  feasted  off  dog-meat  in  the  filthy 
lodges,  and  rode  on  buffalo  hunts,  but,  to  their  youthful 
chagrin,  had  no  opportunity  of  following  on  the  war-path. 
The  exposures  and  hardships  of  this  wild  life  brought 
upon  Parkman  a  wasting  illness,  which  sapped  his 
strength  until,  as  he  said,  he  was  in  a  fair  way  of  aton 
ing  for  his  love  of  the  prairie  "  by  resting  there  forever." 
He  came  home  with  health  permanently  impaired,  but 
he  had  gained  what  he  sought,  —  the  study  from  the 
living  model  of  those  frontier  types,  brave,  squaw,  hunter, 
soldier,  fur-trader,  whose  figures  were  to  animate  his 
Canadian  wonder-tale.  The  account  of  this  trip,  as 
Parkman,  whose  sight  was  seriously  affected,  dictated  it 
from  a  darkened  room  to  his  comrade,  made  his  initial 
volume,  The  Oregon  Trail.  The  scope  of  his  concep 
tion  had  now  so  enlarged  as  to  embrace  the  entire  strife 
between  England  and  France  for  the  possession  of  North 
America,  and  by  dint  of  forty  industrious  years  he  trans- 


248  AMERICAN   LITERATURE  CHAP. 

lated  his  dream  into  deed.  He  did  not  begin  his  story 
at  the  beginning,  but  at  the  end,  opening  his  series  of 
historical  narratives  with  the  Conspiracy  of  Pontiac. 
After  a  long  interval  came  Pioneers  of  France  in  the 
New  World,  relating  the  first  attempts  at  French  colo 
nization.  Then  followed  in  order  the  Jesuits  in  North 
America,  describing  those  heroic  missions  which  dared 
so  much  and  did  so  little;  the  Discovery  of  the  Great 
West,  telling  of  the  romantic  exploration  of  the  Missis 
sippi  ;  the  Old  Regime  in  Canada,  occupied  with  the 
second  half  of  the  seventeenth  century ;  Count  Fronte- 
nac,  treating  of  the  first  sharp  clash  between  France  and 
England;  Montcalm  and  Wolfe,  depicting  the  latter 
scenes  of  that  long  contest,  and  swinging  the  circle 
round  again  to  the  Conspiracy  of  Pontiac.  A  supple 
mentary  issue,  A  Half-  Century  of  Conflict,  filled  in  the 
gap  between  the  Frontenac  volume  and  its  successor. 

To  his  youthful  studies  from  nature,  Parkman  had 
added  the  severest  and  most  scrupulous  research.  His 
wealth  secured  him  aid  of  secretaries  and  copyists,  but 
five  times  he  visited  Europe  in  person  to  explore  the 
French  and  English  archives,  and  invalid  though  he  was, 
he  journeyed  to  every  American  locality,  however  diffi 
cult  of  access,  that  he  desired  to  describe.  When  the 
doctors,  who  at  the  best  allowed  him  but  a  brief  work 
ing-day,  sometimes  only  three  or  four  isolated  half-hours, 
were  compelled  by  his  exhaustion  to  debar  him  from  his 
studies  altogether,  even  for  months  at  a  time,  he  went 
quietly  into  his  garden  and  tended  his  roses.  For  two 


v  NATIONAL  ERA:   PROSE  THOUGHT  249 

years  he  held  the  chair  of  horticulture  at  Harvard.  But 
however  warily  he  might  bide  his  time,  the  first  day  of 
strength  found  him  again  among  his  books  and  manu 
scripts,  with  an  amanuensis  busy  by  his  side.  He  was 
constantly  on  the  verge  of  blindness,  but  other  eyes 
made  good  the  dimness  of  his  own.  The  ardent  ambi 
tion  of  youth  and  manhood's  austere  resolve  were  sacredly 
fulfilled.  His  work  is  already  classic,  and  although  Ban 
croft  may  be  superseded,  Prescott  supplemented,  and 
even  Motley  corrected,  it  does  not  yet  appear  that  Park- 
man  has  left  space  for  a  successor.  Although  his  tech 
nical  process  was  strictly  that  of  the  modern  historical 
student,  his  final  conception  was  eminently  imaginative 
and  poetic.  A  past  bright  with  chivalry,  adventure,  and 
wildwood  romance  lives  again  in  his  enchanting  pages. 
Prescott  could  color  the  vanished  scene,  and  Motley  call 
up  the  spirits  of  the  dead,  but  Parkman's  magic  wand 
has  restored  a  whole  dominion,  with  its  own  life  and 
atmosphere.  France  and  England  in  North  America 
crowns  the  historic  labors  of  the  era,  —  labors  that,  for 
the  union  of  undaunted  purpose,  scholarly  devotion,  and 
artistic  vision  are  equalled  in  no  other  department  of 
our  American  literature. 

V.  Oratory.  —  This  art,  even  more  than  others,  mir 
rors  the  national  life.  American  eloquence  has  changed 
its  form  with  its  theme.  The  ringing  appeals  of  Otis 
and  Henry  sufficed  for  a  crisis  in  which  the  issue  was 
comparatively  clear.  "  The  waves  of  rebellion,"  to  adapt 
Hamilton's  fine  phrase,  "  sparkled  with  fire,"  but  when 


25O  AMERICAN   LITERATURE  CHAP. 

the  revolt  was  once  accomplished  and  perplexing  ques 
tions  of  the  national  organization  had  arisen,  the  vehe 
mence  of  oratory  gave  way  to  The  Federalist,  with  its 
closely  knit  argumentation.  The  Civil  War  was  pre 
ceded  by  a  generation  of  forensic  debate,  for  the  moral 
aspect  of  the  problems  that  centred  about  slavery  was 
not  absolutely  patent  except  to  the  northern  Abolition 
ists.  Garrison  swept  aside  all  consideration  of  the  rights 
of  slaveholders,  and  yet  under  the  law  of  the  land  they 
had  their  rights,  which  they  forfeited  only  by  armed 
rebellion.  Lincoln,  who,  at  an  earlier  time,  would  have 
had  the  government  duly  buy  the  human  property  it  had 
so  long  recognized,  justified  the  Emancipation  Procla 
mation  as  "  warranted  by  the  Constitution  upon  military 
necessity."  The  Senate  Chamber  knew  the  complexities 
of  the  situation  better  than  Faneuil  Hall,  and  where  the 
chief  Abolition  orator,  WENDELL  PHILLIPS,  felt  himself  free 
to  inveigh  and  denounce,  Webster  and  Clay  held  them 
selves  bound  to  examine  and  consider.  A  martyr  is 
easily  an  extremist,  and  the  Massachusetts  Abolitionists 
had  to  undergo  social  ostracism  and  worse.  Even  so 
gentle  a  philanthropist  as  Lydia  Maria  Child,  whose  his 
torical  tales  and  editorship  of  the  Juvenile  Miscellany 
had  made  her  widely  popular,  found  her  Appeal  in  Behalf 
of  that  Class  of  Americans  called  Africans  extremely  ex 
pensive  in  the  diminution  of  her  book  sales  and  maga 
zine  subscriptions,  and  in  the  loss  of  her  literary  prestige. 
Phillips,  a  classmate  of  Motley  at  Harvard  and  no  less 
elegant  in  tastes  and  bearing,  having  seen  Garrison 


v  NATIONAL  ERA:    PROSE  THOUGHT  2$I 

mobbed  in  1835,  lost  little  time  in  becoming  his  right- 
hand  man.  This  brilliant  recruit  was  young  enough  to 
smart  under  the  swift  recoil  of  those  patrician  Bostonians 
among  whom  he  belonged  by  birth  and  breeding,  but, 
impetuous,  inconsistent,  generous-hearted,  with  a  rare 
native  gift  of  eloquence,  he  flung  himself,  heart  and  soul, 
into  the  vulgar  cause.  Again  and  again,  on  the  lecture 
platform,  he  faced  such  furious  crowds  that  a  body 
guard  of  his  friends  had  to  escort  him  home.  The  better 
part  of  his  valor  was  never  discretion,  but  his  burning 
speech  did  not  bring  upon  him  the  fate  at  which  Holmes 
mischievously  hinted : 

"  Like  our  Motley's  John  of  Barnveld,  you  have  always  been  in 
clined 

To  speak  —  well,  —  somewhat  frankly,  —  to  let  us  know  your 
mind, 

And  the  Mynheers  would  have  told  you  to  be  cautious  what  you 
said, 

Or  else  that  silver  tongue  of  yours  might  cost  your  precious  head." 

The  most  notable  victim  of  personal  violence  was 
CHARLES  SUMNER,  who  began  his  lawyer's  career  in  Boston 
with  the  brightest  prospects,  but,  after  identifying  him 
self  with  Abolition,  never  again  pocketed  so  much  as  a 
five-dollar  fee.  The  aristocratic  doors  of  Boston,  save 
only  Prescott's,  and  of  Cambridge,  save  only  Longfel 
low's,  were  shut  against  him.  When  he  was  sent  to 
Congress,  he  bore  himself  manfully,  speaking  with  ability 
and  force  on  the  unpopular  side,  until  he  suffered  a  bar 
barous  caning  at  the  hands  of  a  southern  opponent,  who 
sprang  upon  him,  as  he  was  writing  in  his  chair,  from 


252  AMERICAN   LITERATURE  CHAP. 

behind.  The  cruel  injuries  to  head  and  spine  kept 
Sumner  out  of  the  active  fight  for  the  next  four  years, 
but  his  sufferings,  intensifying  the  wrath  of  Massachusetts 
against  slavery  and  all  its  brutal  ways,  fought  for  him. 
Passions  ran  high  in  the  Senate  through  those 
Homeric  years  of  the  middle  century.  There,  until  he 
fell  dying  in  his  seat  in  1848,  sat  John  Quincy  Adams, 
"  the  old  man  eloquent,"  whom  the  southern  senators, 
enraged  by  the  stings  of  his  persistent  sarcasms,  pre 
ferred  to  call  "the  old  man  malignant."  There  sat 
Jefferson  Davis,  Thomas  Hart  Benton,  known  as  "  Old 
Bullion,"  and  the  veteran  HENRY  CLAY,  the  "  Great  Paci 
ficator."  Foreseeing  the  agonies  of  Civil  War,  he  did 
his  utmost  to  avert-  it.  Between  the  two  embittered 
sections  stood^  this  familiar,  friendly  figure,  anxious  and 
conciliatory,  urging  concessions,  devising  compromises. 
In  oratory  he  was,  as  a  fellow  Congressman  has  charac 
terized  him,  "an  impromptu,  cut-and-thrust  debater," 
less  noted  for  set  speeches  than  for  his  alertness  in 
verbal  sparring.  His  eloquence,  nervous,  thrilling,  mag 
netic,  was  sure  of  its  immediate  effects,  but  loses  lustre 
in  the  cold  reproduction  of  print.  The  leader  of  the 
slavery  party  was  JOHN  C.  CALHOUN,  of  South  Carolina, 
whose  ascetic,  saintlike  look  was  in  accord  with  the 
austere  simplicity  of  his  oratorical  manner.  He  was 
calm,  logical,  subtle,  tenacious,  —  speaking,  said  a  fre 
quent  hearer,  "  like  a  college  professor  demonstrating  to 
his  class."  Calhoun's  great  personal  influence  with  the 
more  refined  and  scholarly  element  of  the  South  added 


v  NATIONAL  ERA:    PROSE  THOUGHT  253 

weight  to  the  doctrine  of  State  Rights,  of  which  he 
was  chief  advocate  and  expositor.  On  the  fourth  of 
March,  1850,  he  was  supported  from  his  death-bed 
into  the  Senate  Chamber  to  be  present  at  the  reading 
of  his  speech  upon  the  California  Compromise.  He 
had  always  held  with  a  dogmatic  grip  to  the  belief  that 
slavery  was  "a  good,  a  positive  good,"  and  in  the  closing 
words  of  this  impressive  address  he  solemnly  declared 
that  he  had  throughout  his  career  striven  against  the 
Abolition  agitation  "with  the  intention  of  saving  the 
Union,  if  it  could  be  done,  and,  if  it  cannot,  to  save 
the  section  where  it  has  pleased  Providence  to  cast  my 
lot,  and  which,  I  sincerely  believe,  has  justice  and  the 
Constitution  on  its  side." 

Three  days  later,  DANIEL  WEBSTER  rose  in  the  Senate 
to  make  that  momentous  speech  which  shook  the  North  as 
with  an  earthquake,  and,  so  far  as  the  trust  and  reverence 
of  his  constituency  were  concerned,  fulfilled  his  own  fear 
that  it  would  "  ruin  "  him.  He,  the  pride  and  bulwark 
of  New  England,  her 

"  stateliest  type  of  man, 
In  port  and  speech  Olympian," 

gave  in  his  great  assent  to  Clay's  Compromises,  with 
their  odious  measure  of  a  Fugitive  Slave  Law.  It  was 
the  turning-point  in  a  life  which  had  opened,  humbly 
enough,  sixty-eight  years  before,  in  a  New  Hampshire 
farm-house.  Webster  has  himself  told  of  the  depth  of  his 
boyish  feeling  when  he  first  learned  that  his  hard-work- 


254  AMERICAN  LITERATURE  CHAP. 

ing  father  had  planned  to  send  him  to  Dartmouth  Col 
lege.  "  I  remember,"  he  wrote,  "  the  very  hill  we  were 
ascending,  through  deep  snows,  in  a  New  England 
sleigh,  when  my  father  made  his  purpose  known  to  me. 
I  could  not  speak.  How  could  he,  I  thought,  with  so 
large  a  family,  and  in  such  narrow  circumstances,  think 
of  incurring  so  great  an  expense  for  me  ?  A  warm  glow 
ran  all  over  me,  and  I  laid  my  head  on  my  father's 
shoulder  and  wept."  That  was  an  eventful  day  for 
Dartmouth,  too,  as  she  realized  twenty-one  years  later, 
when  Webster  saved  her  imperilled  charter,  winning  his 
case  before  the  Supreme  Court  of  Washington  by  an 
impassioned  plea  which  he  considered  one  of  the  most 
significant  successes  of  his  life.  He  had  entered  on 
legal  practice  at  the  New  Hampshire  bar,  a  swarthy, 
"raven-haired  fellow,  with  an  eye  as  black  as  death's, 
and  as  heavy  as  a  lion's."  Nine  years  sufficed  to  put 
him  at  the  head  of  his  profession  there,  and  he  removed 
to  Boston,  where  his  continued  achievements  as  a  lawyer 
gave  him  a  national  renown.  His  part  in  the  convention 
for  revising  the  Constitution  of  Massachusetts  approved 
his  statesmanship,  and  his  Plymouth  and  Bunker  Hill 
orations,  with  the  eulogy  upon  Adams  and  Jefferson, 
wrapped  him  in  a  blaze  of  glory.  Webster  had  been 
twice  sent  from  New  Hampshire  to  Congress,  and  again, 
in  1822,  he  entered  public  life,  to  be  for  thirty  years  a 
central  figure  there,  although,  like  Henry  Clay,  he  was 
three  times  disappointed  in  the  hope  of  the  Presidency. 
Carlyle  once  said  of  him  :  "  He  looks  like  a  sort  of  cathe- 


V  NATIONAL  ERA:   PROSE  THOUGHT  255 

dral,"  and,  indeed,  an  almost  superstitious  veneration 
came  to  attach  to  that  erect  and  portly  form  crowned  by 
the  "  amorphous,  crag- like  face ;  the  dull  black  eyes 
under  the  precipice  of  brows,  like  dull  anthracite  furnaces 
needing  only  to  be  blown  ;  the  mastiff  mouth  accurately 
closed."  The  unfathomable  gaze  of  those  dusky  eyes 
awed  the  souls  of  men.  For  once  the  Yankee  humor 
and  audacity  were  abashed.  Webster's  very  cravat,  blue 
coat,  and  buff  waistcoat  seemed  invested  with  an  intel 
lectual  majesty.  Even  now,  it  is  only  needful  to  read 
over  one  of  his  grand  speeches,  as  the  second  reply  to 
Hayne,  accounted  his  masterpiece,  equally  wonderful  for 
its  steady  tramp  of  arguments  and  tremendous  floods  of 
feeling,  to  realize  that  overwhelming  power.  Webster's 
earnestness  and  force  of  mind  impressed  themselves  like 
sheer  weight.  Much  as  his  regal  presence  and  organ- 
range  of  voice  enhanced  the  first  effect  of  his  oratory,  it 
remains  in  print  colossal  eloquence.  It  is  little  wonder 
that  when  a  champion  like  this  ranged  himself  on  the 
side  of  the  California  Compromises,  their  measures 
should  become  law.  Clay's  policy  had  a  temporary 
triumph,  but  that  seventh  of  March  speech  shattered  the 
Webster  idolatry.  In  the  view  of  New  England,  this 
northern  advocate  of  the  slave-power  had  put  law  above 
right,  expediency  above  principle,  and  ambition  above 
conscience. 

"  So  fallen  !  so  lost !  the  light  withdrawn 

Which  once  he  wore, 
The  glory  from  his  gray  hairs  gone 
Forevermore !  " 


256  AMERICAN    LITERATURE  CHAP. 

Emerson  claimed  that  Webster  had  always  shown 
himself  deficient  in  moral  sensibility.  "  Hence  a 
sterility  of  thought,  the  want  of  generalization  in  his 
speeches,  and  the  curious  fact  that,  with  a  general 
ability  which  impresses  all  the  world,  there  is  not  a 
single  general  remark,  not  an  observation  on  life  and 
manners,  not  an  aphorism,  that  can  pass  into  literature 
from  his  writings."  The  apologists  for  Webster  main 
tain  that  he  should  be  written  into  history  a  martyr, 
not  a  traitor.  He  was  the  supreme  expounder  and 
upholder  of  the  national  Constitution.  He  counted 
slavery  an  evil  and  was  opposed  to  its  extension,  but  he 
at  no  time  admitted  that  slavery  as  existing  in  the 
Southern  States  could  be  assailed.  He  believed  that 
the  antislavery  tide  of  feeling,  which,  on  the  seventh 
of  March,  he  vainly  strove  to  stem,  endangered  the 
stability  of  the  Union.  The  burning  passion  of  his 
life  was  for  the  Union,  — "  Liberty  and  Union,  now 
and  forever,  one  and  inseparable."  Whether  that 
crucial  speech  redounds  to  his  shame  or  honor  de 
pends  upon  the  motives  of  a  deep,  inscrutable  heart. 
He  himself  avowed,  at  the  hour,  their  patriotic  purity : 
"  I  have  a  part  to  act,  not  for  my  own  security  or  safety, 
for  I  am  looking  out  for  no  fragment  on  which  to  float 
away  from  the  wreck,  if  wreck  there  must  be ;  but  for 
the  good  of  the  whole  and  the  preservation  of  all,  and 
there  is  that  which  will  keep  me  to  my  duty  during  the 
struggle,  whether  the  sun  and  the  stars  shall  appear  or 
shall  not  appear  for  many  days.  I  speak  to-day  for  the 
preservation  of  the  Union." 


v  NATIONAL  ERA:   PROSE  THOUGHT  257 

Outside  the  Washington  storm-centre,  the  prevail 
ing  oratory  was  hardly  less  militant  and  denunciatory. 
Plymouth  pulpit,  where  the  fearless,  warm-hearted  HENRY 
WARD  BEECHER  kindled  great  audiences  to  generous  life, 
was  an  antislavery  platform,  though  not  of  the  Garrison 
type.  At  the  bar,  RUFUS  CHOATE,  rapid,  vivid,  and  inci 
sive,  sometimes  flashed  aside  from  his  argument  for  the 
charm  of  a  moment's  mirth  or  beauty,  but  the  gentler 
graces  of  eloquence  were  best  represented  by  EDWARD 
EVERETT.  This  most  accomplished  gentleman,  who  was 
successively  Harvard  tutor,  Unitarian  pastor,  Professor  of 
Greek  at  Harvard,  Congressman,  Governor  of  Massa 
chusetts,  Minister  to  England,  and  Secretary  of  State, 
illustrated  the  conservative  sentiment  of  Boston.  Aboli 
tion  was  too  rash  and  rude  for  him,  but  his  services 
to  culture  were  outranked  by  none. 

Since  the  outbreak  of  the  Civil  War,  American 
oratory  has  seemed  to  moderate  its  tone.  The  fervid 
and  sonorous  periods  of  Webster  now  strike  a  little 
strangely  on  the  ear.  Stern  strife  and  loyal  death  put 
the  eloquence  of  mere  words  to  shame.  The  flawless 
sublimity  of  Lincoln's  Gettysburg  address  comes  not 
merely  from  its  concentrated  truth,  its  crystal  clarity, 
its  involuntary  rhythm  of  emotion,  the  moral  intensity 
of  every  syllable,  but  from  the  silence  of  that  sleeping 
battle-host.  The  Scriptural  cadences  of  the  Second 
Inaugural  are  weighted  with  a  nation's  agony  and 
upborne  upon  a  nation's  faith. 

The  poetic  plainness  of  Lincoln  suggests  a  kindred 


258  AMERICAN   LITERATURE  o 

quality  of  simplicity  in  the  greatest  of  our  recent  pulpit 
orators,  PHILLIPS  BROOKS,  the  beloved  Bishop  of  Massa 
chusetts;  but  far  different  from  Lincoln's  terseness 
was  the  rushing  impetuosity  of  that  strong  pleading 
which  not  the  walls  of  Trinity  nor  of  any  church  or 
sect  could  bound.  Eloquence  becomes  rarer  as  themes 
grow  more  intricate.  In  the  complicated  problems 
of  finance  and  economics  that  have  increasingly  en 
gaged  public  attention  since  the  War,  even  the  fervor 
of  Wendell  Phillips  but  beat  the  air.  The  judgment 
of  the  specialist  carries  further  in  politics  to-day  than 
oratorical  passion.  But  although  the  apparatus  of 
theological  scholarship  is  more  elaborate  than  ever 
before,  Phillips  Brooks  made  an  avenue  for  sacred 
oratory  by  appealing  purely  to  the  spiritual  conscious 
ness  and  the  primal  faiths  of  man. 

VI.  Studies  in  Nature.  —  From  the  day  of  Franklin, 
natural  science  has  had  its  American  devotees,  usually 
dependent  upon  academic  appointments  for  a  subsist 
ence.  Yale  boasts  its  Sillimans,  Amherst  its  Hitchcocks, 
Vassar  its  Maria  Mitchell,  Harvard  its  Shaler,  Scudder, 
and  Gray.  But  although  there  were  many  isolated 
workers,  a  significantly  large  proportion  being  of  foreign 
birth,  the  general  public  was  apathetic.  Even  the  col 
leges  treated  the  subject  cavalierly,  as  in  Columbia's 
appointing  Dr.  Mitchell  to  a  roomy  chair  of  chemistry, 
natural  history,  and  philosophy.  In  "practical  "  discov 
eries  or  inventions,  as  ether,  the  telegraph  and  telephone, 
the  applications  of  steam  and  electricity,  America  has 


NATIONAL  ERA:   PROSE  THOUGHT  259 

shown  herself  shrewdly  interested,  but,  until  the  advent 
of  Agassiz,  of  science  for  truth's  sake  the  country  at 
large  knew  little  and  cared  less.  How  great  were  the 
obstacles  which  this  popular  indifference  put  in  the  way 
of  independent  investigators  is  seen  in  the  case  of  our 
two  ornithologists,  Wilson,  a  native  of  Scotland,  and 
Audubon,  whose  father  was  a  Frenchman.  The  Scotch 
naturalist,  seeking  subscriptions  for  his  American  Orni 
thology,  with  its  nine  folio  volumes  and  many  colored 
plates,  was  frankly  told  by  the  governor  of  New  York : 
"  I  would  not  give  a  hundred  dollars  for  all  the  birds  you 
intend  to  describe,  even  if  I  had  them  alive,"  while  a 
Pennsylvania  judge  rebuked  him  for  producing  a  book 
so  costly  as  to  be  beyond  "  the  reach  of  the  commonalty 
and  therefore  inconsistent  with  our  republican  institu 
tions."  Audubon  fared  rather  better,  although  his  Cin 
cinnati  neighbors  shook  their  heads  over  his  woodland 
wanderings,  and  in  Philadelphia  and  New  York,  where 
he  sought  patronage  for  his  magnificent  work,  his  recep 
tion  left  him  "clouded  and  depressed,"  feeling  himself 
"  strange  to  all  but  the  birds  of  America."  But  Agassiz, 
arriving  in  Boston  close  upon  the  middle  of  the  century, 
did  for  science  what  Longfellow  was  doing  for  poetry,  — 
made  it  the  possession  of  the  people.  The  devout  son 
of  a  Swiss  pastor,  opening  his  summer  school  at  Penikese 
with  prayer,  he  gained  American  confidence  so  fully  that 
the  descendants  of  the  Puritans  hearkened  willingly  to 
his  strong  saying :  "  Philosophers  and  theologians  have 
still  to  learn  that  a  physical  fact  is  as  sacred  as  a  moral 


260  AMERICAN    LITERATURE  CHAP. 

principle."  The  great  naturalist  was  a  still  greater 
teacher  and,  in  science  as  in  philosophy,  teaching  has 
been  the  first  need  of  our  democracy.  For  a  quarter- 
century  Agassiz  dwelt  among  us,  and  never  was  man 
more  cordial,  dominant,  inspiring,  irresistible,  setting  all 
the  world  to  work,  drawing,  like  a  magnet,  thousands  of 
dollars  out  of  private  pockets  and  state  treasuries,  fairly 
radiating  scientific  enthusiasm.  Another  famous  Swiss, 
Guyot,  the  geologist  and  geographer,  followed  him  to 
America  and  continued  his  mission. 

Contemporary  with  the  labors  of  Agassiz  were  the 
recreations  of  our  "  poet-naturalist."  Some  thirty  years 
after  Bryant  had  first  brought  the  American  aspects  of 
nature  into  verse,  HENRY  DAVID  THOREAU  made  them  at 
home  in  prose.  They  had  not  absolutely  escaped  men 
tion,  even  in  Colonial  times.  A  few  of  the  pioneers, 
especially  the  vigilant  Wood  and  the  credulous  Josselyn, 
had  essayed  nature  description,  and  a  French  immigrant 
of  the  Revolutionary  period,  Saint  John  de  Crevecceur, 
recorded  in  his  Letters  from  an  American  Farmer  sym- 
pachetic  observations  of  birds  and  bees  and  yellow  wasps. 
The  charm  of  these  letters,  which  ought  to  be  reprinted, 
is  akin  to  the  charm  that  our  own  day  loves  in  the  writ 
ing  of  such  nature-intimates  as  William  Hamilton  Gibson, 
Wilson  Flagg,  Frank  Bolles,  Maurice  Thompson,  Brad 
ford  Torrey,  Olive  Thorne  Miller.  But  who  of  these 
ever  kept  as  a  parlor  ornament  a  nest  of  buzzing  hornets, 
that  reciprocated  the  courtesy  by  catching  the  household 
flies,  even  off  the  children's  eyelids? 


Reproduced  by  permission  of  Houghton,  Mifflin  &  Co., 
Publishers  of  Thoreau's  Works. 


\  o  n  A 

OF   THE 

UNIVERSITY 


v  NATIONAL  ERA:   PROSE  THOUGHT  26 1 

Pictures  of  forest,  lake,  and  ocean  form  one  of  the  last 
ing  attractions  of  Cooper's  novels,  and  sketches  of  New 
England  country  scenes,  hardly  less  wild  and  strange, 
relieve  with  touches  of  quiet  beauty  the  transcendental 
rhapsodies  of  Sylvester  Judd's  Margaret ;  but  nature  is 
Thoreau's  staple.  The  "hermit  of  Walden"  was  not 
posing.  He  dwelt  among  the  pines  by  Walden  Pond 
because  he  had  need  of  solitude  in  preparation  for  his 
life-task  of  authorship.  "  How  can  we  expect  a  harvest 
of  thought,"  he  asked,  "  who  have  not  had  a  seed-time 
of  character?"  It  is  often  asserted  that  Thoreau  with 
drew  into  his  mimic  wilderness  as  a  protest  against  civili 
zation  or  from  surly  motives  of  misanthropy,  but  his  own 
words  bear  no  such  statements  out :  "  I  went  to  the 
woods  because  I  wished  to  live  deliberately,  to  front  only 
the  essential  facts  of  life,  and  see  if  I  could  not  learn 
what  it  had  to  teach,  and  not,  when  I  came  to  die,  dis 
cover  that  I  had  not  lived.  I  did  not  wish  to  live  what 
was  not  life,  living  is  so  dear."  Born  in  Concord,  and 
graduated  at  Harvard,  he  had  taught,  acquired  pro 
ficiency  in  the  family  trade  of  pencil-making,  and  learned 
surveying,  so  that  the  ordinary  paths  to  the  ordinary  ends 
were  well  open  before  him  ;  but  he  counted  the  life  more 
than  meat.  That  young  mind,  which  Emerson  found  so 
"  free  and  erect,"  needed  to  get  away  for  a  season,  even 
from  Emerson  himself,  to  realize  its  own  quality  and 
function.  "Know  your  own  bone,"  he  said,  "gnaw  at 
it,  bury  it,  unearth  it,  and  gnaw  it  still.  ...  In  what 
concerns  you  much,  do  not  think  that  you  have  com- 


262  AMERICAN  LITERATURE  CHAP. 

pardons  :  know  that  you  are  alone  in  the  world."  On  a 
wood-lot  belonging  to  Emerson,  close  by  Walden  Pond, 
the  young  Transcendentalist,  by  aid  of  Alcott's  best  axe, 
built  himself  a  hut,  which  cost  him,  all  told,  twenty-eight 
dollars.  He  took  possession  on  Independence  Day,  and 
lived  there  two  years,  after  which  he  returned  to  the 
village  for  the  remaining  fourteen  years  of  his  life.  In 
point  of  fact,  however,  he  was  not  a  recluse  at  Walden. 
He  strolled  into  Concord  every  other  afternoon  or  so, 
and  kept  in  his  sylvan  hermitage  open  house  for  all  who 
passed  his  way.  He  was  sometimes  annoyed  by  the 
inquisitive,  but  had  an  unfeigned  welcome  for  "  children 
come  a-berrying,  railroad  men  taking  a  Sunday  morning 
walk  in  clean  shirts,  fishermen  and  hunters,  poets  and 
philosophers ;  in  short,  all  honest  pilgrims,  who  came 
out  to  the  woods  for  freedom's  sake,  and  really  left  the 
village  and  town  behind."  Nor  did  he  lack  other  com 
panions.  Phcebes  built  in  his  shed,  and  robins  in  the  pines 
that  brushed  his  outer  wall,  even  the  shy  partridge  fearlessly 
clucked  her  brood  past  his  window,  the  mouse  that  lived 
under  the  floor  ate  from  his  finger,  and  a  squirrel  fell  so 
in  love  with  him  that  he  had  to  take  it  in  as  a  permanent 
boarder.  The  wood-birds  would  perch  upon  his  shoul 
der  or  upon  the  spade  with  which  he  tilled  his  precious 
bean-patch.  He  could  pull  a  woodchuck  from  its  hole, 
or  lift  a  fish  from  the  water  in  his  hand.  Shortly  after 
forsaking  this  happy  retreat,  Thoreau,  who  had  been  one 
of  the  Dial  contributors,  published  A  Week  on  the  Con 
cord  and  Merrimac  Rivers,  the  record  of  a  trip  that  he 


V  NATIONAL   ERA:   PROSE  THOUGHT  263 

had  taken,  long  before  going  to  Walden,  with  his  brother 
John  in  a  boat  of  their  own  building.  This  brother  had 
since  died,  and  much  fault  has  been  found  with  poor 
Thoreau  for  his  sad  little  attempt  to  show  the  world  and 
Emerson  what  an  admirable  stoic  he  was.  "  I  do  not 
wish  to  see  John  ever  again,"  he  said,  but  twelve  years 
after  his  brother's  death  he  turned  pale  and  faint  in 
speaking  of  it.  This  initial  book,  mystical  in  tone 
and  abrupt  in  style,  did  not  take  with  the  public.  Of 
the  thousand  copies,  which  formed  the  first  edition, 
scarcely  more  than  two  hundred  were  sold.  Seventy- 
five  were  given  away,  and  the  rest  sent  back  to  the 
author,  who  tugged  them  upstairs  on  his  back,  and  ob 
served  stout-heartedly  :  "  I  have  now  a  library  of  nearly 
nine  hundred  volumes,  over  seven  hundred  of  which  I 
wrote  myself."  Walden,  describing  his  experiment  in 
simplified  life,  sold  better,  but  the  other  volumes,  Excur 
sions,  The  Maine  Woods,  Cape  Cod,  A  Yankee  in  Canada, 
Early  Spring  in  Massachusetts,  Summer,  Winter,  Autumn, 
Miscellanies,  have  been  printed  since  his  death,  edited 
by  his  friends  from  his  journals.  These  books  reveal  at, 
once  the  versatile  Yankee,  with  his  French  extraction, 
proud  of  his  frugality  and  skill  in  handicrafts ;  the  out- 
of-door  naturalist,  stealthy  of  tread  and  Indian-keen  of 
sense ;  and  the  brooding  mystic,  to  whom  this  world, 
with  all  its  multiform  detail,  is  but  a  spiritual  enigma 
that  men  are  here  to  read.  And  when,  again,  Thoreau 
writes  of  mountains  "washed  in  air"  or  the  blue 
bird  carrying  "  the  sky  on  his  back "  or  the  meadow 


264  AMERICAN   LITERATURE  CHAP. 

"  bespattered  with  melody  "  of  bobolinks,  he  is  no  better 
than  a  poet. 

Thoreau,  "sad  as  a  pine-tree,"  not  only  lived  with 
Nature,  and  kept  a  day-by-day  record  of  her,  but  he  is 
strangely  akin  to  her.  He  shared  her  wildness  and  rough 
ness,  her  austerity  and  asperity,  the  purity  and  chill  of 
her  New  England  snows  that  slew  him  in  his  prime. 
What  he  called  "the  sours  and  bitters  of  Nature"  were 
in  his  blood.  "  From  the  forest  and  wilderness,"  he 
said,  "come  the  tonics  and  barks  which  brace  mankind." 
With  his  deep-set  gray  eyes  under  the  shaggy  brows,  his 
beak-like  nose,  his  wary  glance,  his  swinging  gait,  his 
weather-stained  garb,  he  was  a  man  to  note,  if  only  for 
that  "ugliness"  which  Hawthorne  liked  in  Thoreau,  as 
becoming  him  "  much  better  than  beauty."  He  was  a 
pronounced  individualist,  refusing  to  pay  taxes  to  a  gov 
ernment  that  sustained  slavery,  eulogizing  John  Brown, 
holding  aloof  from  the  church.  The  D.D.'s  whose  opin 
ion  he  valued  most,  he  said,  were  chickadee-dees.  "  If 
a  man  does  not  keep  pace  with  his  companions,  perhaps 
it  is  because  he  hears  a  different  drummer.  Let  him 
step  to  the  music  which  he  hears."  Like  Emerson,  like 
Whitman,  Thoreau  proclaimed  the  joy  of  life.  "  I  love 
my  fate  to  the  core  and  rind,"  he  cried,  and  well  he 
might,  for  obscure  and  harsh  though  it  seemed  to  be,  it 
held  the  ideal  prizes  :  "  If  the  day  and  night  are  such 
that  you  greet  them  with  joy,  and  life  emits  a  fragrance 
like  flowers  and  sweet-scented  herbs  —  is  more  elastic, 
starry,  immortal  —  that  is  your  success." 


V  NATIONAL  ERA:   PROSE  THOUGHT  265 

Thoreau  is  still  the  Only.  Not  the  best  of  his  disci 
ples,  not  John  Burroughs,  can  reach  his  upper  notes. 
But  this  is  an  ungracious  way  of  recognizing  our  debt  to 
"John  of  Birds,"  whose  cheery  essays  have  illuminated 
farm-lot  and  roadside  tangle.  He  holds,  too,  a  clearer 
mirror  up  to  nature.  The  one  canon  of  Thoreau's  literary 
art,  the  end  and  aim  of  all  that  ceaseless  note-taking  and 
journal-keeping,  was  to  speak  the  truth,  but  he  saw  natu 
ral  phenomena  with  eyes  that  searched  beyond,  and  he 
reported,  after  all,  less  of  this  world  than  of  the  other. 
Burroughs  is  a  plainer  man,  who  takes  warblers  and  hem 
locks  at  their  surface  value  and  makes  literature  out  of 
a  cow. 


266  AMERICAN   LITERATURE  CHAP. 


CHAPTER  VI 

NATIONAL  ERA:    PROSE  FICTION 

A  novel  is  in  its  broadest  definition  a  personal  impression  of  life. 
—  HENRY  JAMES,  The  Art  of  Fiction. 

I.  Adventure.  —  The  regular  function  of  a  novel  is  to 
tell  a  story,  but  there  are  various  kinds  of  stories  and  vari 
ous  ways  of  telling  them.  The  tellers,  too,  have  various 
objects  in  view.  American  fiction  of  the  present  century 
illustrates  the  most  important  of  these  varieties.  At 
the  outset  stands  the  strong  and  clumsy  figure  of  JAMES 
FENIMORE  COOPER,  whose  novels  are  bold,  stirring  narra 
tives  of  adventure  on  sea  and  land.  They  differ  from 
the  morbid  books  of  Cooper's  predecessor,  Charles 
Brockden  Brown,  as  health  differs  from  disease.  "  When 
have  I  known,"  asked  the  young  consumptive,  "that 
lightness  and  vivacity  of  mind  which  .  .  .  health  .  .  . 
produces  in  men?  Never  .  .  .  longer  than  half  an 
hour  at  a  time  since  I  was  a  man."  Cooper,  on  the 
other  hand,  was  as  robust  as  sun  and  wind  could  make 
him.  His  boyhood  was  passed  on  the  borders  of  the 
wilderness.  His  father,  Judge  Cooper,  a  man  of  energy 
and  resource,  had  secured,  soon  after  the  Revolution,  a 
great  estate,  embracing  thousands  of  acres,  on  Otsego 
Lake  in  New  York.  His  first  survey  of  his  "  patent,"  in 


VI  NATIONAL  ERA:   PROSE  FICTION  267 

1785,  is  made  vivid  by  Judge  Temple  of  The  Pioneers, 
in  a  passage  that  may  serve  to  illustrate  Cooper's  slow 
and  rich  descriptive  manner.  "  I  left  my  party,  the 
morning  of  my  arrival,  near  the  farms  of  the  Cherry 
Valley,  and,  following  a  deer-path,  rode  to  the  summit 
of  the  mountain  that  I  have  since  called  Mount  Vision ; 
for  the  sight  that  there  met  my  eyes  seemed  to  me  as  the 
deceptions  of  a  dream.  The  fire  had  run  over  the 
pinnacle,  and,  in  a  great  measure,  laid  open  the  view. 
The  leaves  were  fallen,  and  I  mounted  a  tree,  and  sat 
for  an  hour  looking  on  the  silent  wilderness.  Not  an 
opening  was  to  be  seen  in  the  boundless  forest,  except 
where  the  lake  lay,  like  a  mirror  of  glass.  The  water 
was  covered  by  myriads  of  the  wild-fowl  that  migrate 
with  the  changes  in  the  season ;  and,  while  in  my  situ 
ation  on  the  branch  of  the  beech,  I  saw  a  bear,  with  her 
cubs,  descend  to  the  shore  to  drink.  I  had  met  many 
deer,  gliding  through  the  woods,  in  my  journey ;  but  not 
the  vestige  of  a  man  could  I  trace  during  my  progress, 
nor  from  my  elevated  observatory.  No  clearing,  no  hut, 
none  of  the  winding  roads  that  are  now  to  be  seen,  were 
there ;  nothing  but  mountains  rising  behind  mountains ; 
and  the  valley,  with  its  surface  of  branches,  enlivened 
here  and  there  with  the  faded  foliage  of  some  tree,  that 
parted  from  its  leaves  with  more  than  ordinary  reluc 
tance.  Even  the  Susquehanna  was  then  hid,  by  the 
height  and  density  of  the  forest." 

Five   years   later,   Judge   Cooper   had   made   in   this 
solitude  a  habitable  spot  for  his  family  and  brought  them 


268  AMERICAN   LITERATURE  CHAP. 

thither.  The  future  novelist  was  then  a  year-old  baby, 
born  in  Burlington,  New  Jersey,  and  for  a  brief  boyhood 
he  was  free  to  revel  in  the  rough,  venturesome,  out-of- 
door  life  of  the  settlement,  drinking  deep,  meanwhile, 
of  the  solemn  beauty  of  the  forest.  All  too  soon  he  was 
banished  from  this  boy's  paradise  and  sent  to  Albany, 
where  he  fitted  for  college  with  a  runaway  English  cleric, 
whose  classics  were  so  good  that  Cooper  entered  Yale  at 
thirteen.  Here  he  roamed  the  countryside  instead  of 
studying,  and,  for  some  unlucky  escapade,  was  dismissed 
in  his  junior  year.  Judge  Cooper,  then  in  Congress, 
decided  to  place  him  in  the  navy.  As  the  custom  was, 
Cooper  learned  to  be  a  sailor  by  shipping  before  the 
mast  on  a  merchantman.  He  sailed  from  New  York  to 
London  and  Gibraltar  and  home  again,  being  much 
favored,  for  literary  purposes,  in  several  Atlantic  storms. 
After  this  apprenticeship 

"  In  cradle  of  the  rude,  imperious  surge," 

he  became,  at  eighteen,  a  midshipman.  There  was  no 
war  on  hand,  doubtless  to  his  disappointment,  but  he 
added  to  his  knowledge  of  wild  nature  by  passing  a 
winter  on  the  remote  shores  of  Lake  Ontario,  where 
he  helped  in  the  building  of  a  naval  vessel,  and  by 
visiting  Niagara  Falls.  At  twenty-one  he  fell  in  love, 
married,  and  resigned  his  commission.  Absorbed  in 
domestic  happiness,  rearing  his  children,  and  farming 
it  in  gentlemanly  fashion,  he  had  attained  the  age  of 
thirty  without  symptoms  of  authorship,  when  one  of 


VI  NATIONAL  ERA:   PROSE  FICTION  269 

those  beings  usually  designated  by  him  as  "  drooping 
females "  projected  him  by  a  quiet  remark  upon  his 
famous  career.  To  young  Mrs.  Cooper,  unquestionably 
a  "  beauteous  and  breathing  model  of  her  sex,"  he  was 
reading  aloud,  one  day,  an  English  society  novel.  When 
he  flung  it  down  with  the  natural  remark,  "  I  believe  I 
could  write  a  better  story  myself,"  the  wife  quite  as  natu 
rally  responded  that  she  would  like  to  see  him  do  it,  or 
words  to  that  effect.  Cooper's  temper  was  never  of  the 
sort  to  "  take  a  dare,"  and  at  this  he  promptly  penned 
a  two-volume  novel  entitled  Precaution.  This  is  a 
wearisome  story  of  high  life  in  England.  Cooper 
knew  nothing  about  English  society  from  personal  ob 
servation,  but  he  modelled  his  writing  on  his  reading. 
A  number  of  fashionable  and  generally  insipid  people 
wind  in  and  out  the  devious  ways  of  courtship,  but  the 
interest,  so  far  as  there  is  any,  centres  in  the  faultless 
daughter  of  a  baronet,  wooed  by  a  disguised  earl,  the 
lady  falling  "  senseless  on  the  sofa "  at  the  disclosure 
of  her  lover's  rank.  The  title  is  justified  through  the 
exertions  of  a  universal  chaperon,  who  labors  "under 
the  disadvantage  of  a  didactic  manner  "  and  is  inveter- 
ately  warning  her  charges  to  hold  their  hearts  in  leash 
and  not  consent  to  marry  without  complete  assurance 
of  the  moral  and  religious  excellence  of  their  suitors. 
Absurd  enough  in  itself,  Precaution  seems  especially 
ill-adapted  to  an  American  public,  but  the  poverty  of 
our  literature  was  then  such  that  novel-readers  expected 
English  situations  and  English  characters  as  a  matter  of 


2/O  AMERICAN   LITERATURE  CHAP. 

course.  Cooper  even  published  his  book  anonymously 
that  it  might  be  the  better  received  as  supposedly  of 
English  authorship. 

This  first  venture  was  hardly  a  success,  but  now  that  he 
had  tasted  ink,  Cooper  could  not  cease.  Precaution  had 
been  published  in  the  autumn  of  1820.  A  year  later  ap 
peared  The  Spy,  —  an  American  story  of  Revolutionary 
date,  with  the  scene  laid  in  Westchester  County  of  New 
York,  where  Cooper  had  made  his  home.  This  was  hot 
ground  in  the  war  time,  British  troops  and  Continentals 
sweeping  back  and  forth  over  the  blood-stained  soil. 
The  main  action  takes  place  at  the  homestead  of  a  dis 
tressed  neutral,  whose  son  wears  the  King's  uniform,  and 
whose  two  daughters  color  their  politics  after  their  lovers' 
coats,  one  red,  one  buff.  In  this  novel  the  "  aged  black," 
on  whom  Cooper's  domestic  machinery  seems  so  depend 
ent,  begins  his  ministrations.  In  addition  to  much  exciting 
and  chivalric  incident,  there  is  the  interest  of  a  mystery  en 
folding  two  prominent  characters,  of  whom  one,  a  solemn 
stalking  personage,  is  Washington  in  disguise,  and  the 
other  is  the  peddler,  Harvey  Birch,  in  Washington's  secret 
service.  Such  devoted  agents  had  not  been  wanting  to 
the  patriot  cause,  and  from  the  tradition  of  one  of  these 
Cooper  portrayed  his  Spy.  This  novel  had  an  unprece 
dented  sale  in  America,  was  approved  in  England,  and  so 
rapturously  hailed  in  France  that  its  fame  went  abroad 
over  all  Europe,  even  Persia  having  a  translation.  Cooper 
now  set  about  story-telling  in  earnest.  Next  came  The 
Pioneers,  dealing  with  the  scenes  of  his  boyhood.  The 


vi  NATIONAL  ERA:   PROSE  FICTION  2/1 

public  expectation  had  run  so  high  that  thirty-five  hun 
dred  copies  were  sold  in  the  first  half-day.  The  book  is 
overladen  with  description, — pictures  of  the  riches  of 
lake  and  forest  in  those  prodigal  times,  when  bass  were 
netted  by  the  shoal  and  pigeons  shot  with  cannon  for 
their  multitude.  Novel-readers,  missing  their  accus 
tomed  diet  of  dukes  and  diadems,  denounced  the  book 
as  vulgar,  with  its  commonplace  incidents  and  lowly 
characters.  Incidents  and  characters  came  from  Cooper's 
deepest  recollections,  —  the  sugaring  off,  the  shooting- 
match  for  the  Christmas  turkey,  the  panther,  the  forest 
fire,  the  border  jumble  of  New  Yorkers,  Yankees,  French 
men,  Germans,  Welshmen,  negroes,  Indians.  But  the 
mongrel  dialect  of  these  worthies,  who  talk  interminably, 
is  vexatious,  and  the  story,  turning  on  a  mysterious  youth 
with  a  mysterious  grievance,  drags.  There  is  a  seeming 
anomaly  here,  for  this  book,  genuine  piece  of  realism 
though  it  is,  stands  also  as  the  forerunner  in  that  unique 
series  of  frontier  romances  known  as  the  Leather-Stocking 
Tales.  Romance  has  been  defined  as  the  union  of  the 
strange  with  the  beautiful,  but  all  that  forest  atmosphere 
so  familiar  to  Cooper  was  a  surprise  to  Europe.  The 
effect  even  of  his  realism  was  romantic.  In  his  later 
Indian  stories,  however,  he  garnished  these  memories  of 
boyhood  with  imaginary  exploits  and  adventures  of  the 
most  startling  sort.  His  wild-life  characters  are  at  a  dis 
advantage  in  The  Pioneers.  Indian  John  is  a  drunken 
old  savage,  with  gleams  of  nobler  memory,  and  Natty 
Bumppo,  or  Leather-Stocking,  is  a  grizzled,  homely- spoken 


2/2  AMERICAN   LITERATURE  CHAP. 

backwoodsman,  whose  distinguishing  traits  are  a  good  aim 
and  a  good  heart,  a  shrinking  from  the  advancing  tide  of 
civilization,  and  a  craving  for  the  further  wilderness. 

Cooper  had  now  broken  ground  successfully  in  the 
Revolutionary  novel  and  the  romance  of  pioneer  life. 
His  next  book  conquered  for  him  the  third  and  last  of 
his  peculiar  domains.  The  authorship  of  the  Waverley 
novels  was  still  under  discussion,  although  Scott  was  gen 
erally  suspected ;  but  The  Pirate,  some  one  claimed  in 
Cooper's  presence,  could  not  have  been  written  by  a 
landsman.  Cooper  maintained,  on  the  contrary,  that 
the  story,  cleverly  done  though  it  was,  lacked  the  true 
nautical  flavor.  To  show  how  much  more  vivid  might 
be  a  sea-yarn  spun  by  a  sailor,  he  wrote  The  Pilot.  This 
captured  the  Edinburgh  Review,  which,  though  protesting 
against  the  tedious  detail,  pronounced  the  book  original 
and  a  masterpiece.  The  Pilot  is  Paul  Jones,  who,  hugging 
a  haughty  melancholy,  furnishes  the  indispensable  mys 
tery,  but  he  is  far  less  attractive,  with  his  alternations  of 
"  cool  asperity  "  and  "  convulsive  grasp,"  than  the  staunch 
old  pea-jacket,  Long  Tom  Coffin.  The  story  "  blows 
fresh,"  and  to  read  it  is  almost  as  good  as  a  voyage. 

Cooper  wrote  twenty-eight  novels  more.  Four  of 
these,  The  Deerslayer,  The  Last  of  the  Mohicans,  The 
Pathfinder,  and  The  Prairie,  make  up  with  The  Pioneers, 
whose  place,  in  the  order  of  events,  is  fourth,  the  Leather- 
Stocking  group.  In  the  first,  Natty  Bumppo  is  a  moral 
izing  youth,  standing  six  feet  in  his  moccasins,  and 
cracking  miraculous  shots.  His  brother-in-arms,  the 


VI  NATIONAL  ERA:   PROSE  FICTION  2/3 

young  Mohican  chief,  Chingachgook,  makes  picturesque 
poses  with  his  arch  and  tender  Wah  !  -  ta  !  -  Wah  ! 
The  second  tale,  most  rapid  and  thrilling  of  all,  has  for 
hero  the  Last  of  the  Mohicans,  Uncas,  son  of  Chingach 
gook.  This  young  brave  is  a  sheer  knight-errant,  always 
"  flying  with  instinctive  delicacy  to  the  assistance  of  the 
females."  Honest  Bumppo  wears,  here  the  sobriquet  of 
Hawk's-eye,  and  is  left,  at  the  close  of  the  book,  clasping 
hands  with  the  bereaved  Chingachgook  over  the  grave  of 
Uncas,  which  they  water  with  "scalding  tears."  The 
scene  of  The  Pathfinder  is  laid  on  Lake  Ontario,  and 
abundant  opportunity  is  given  for  the  display  of  Cooper's 
woodcraft  and  watercraft,  although  Mark  Twain  cavils  at 
both.  Here  Bumppo  falls  in  love,  but  again  the  story 
leaves  him  with  tears  "  rolling  out  of  the  fountains  of 
feeling,"  as  he  generously  relinquishes  the  sergeant's 
daughter  to  a  younger  suitor  and  goes  his  bachelor  way  to 
the  faithful  Chingachgook.  In  The  Pioneers  we  witness 
the  heathen  death  of  the  old  Mohican,  degraded  by 
civilization  to  Indian  John,  and  in  The  Prairie  the 
Christian  death  of  the  trapper  himself.  This  volume  is 
the  most  poetical  of  the  series,  showing  Leather-Stock 
ing,  an  aged,  solitary  figure,  on  the  wide  plains  beyond 
the  Mississippi,  ever  wandering  westward  in  a  vain 
attempt  to  escape  "the  din  of  the  settlements." 

Cooper's  other  Indian  romances  resemble  these,  but 
flow  less  freely.  The  Wept  of  Wish-ton-  Wish  depicts  a 
family  of  Connecticut  Puritans,  who,  besieged  in  a  blaz 
ing  blockhouse  by  murderous  Narragansetts,  come  out 


274  AMERICAN   LITERATURE  CHAP. 

of  their  plight  not  much  the  worse.  Wyandotte  recounts 
the  troubles  of  an  isolated  household  on  the  New  York 
frontier,  betrayed  to  the  savages  by  a  nasal  Yankee. 
The  central  Indian  of  the  story  stabs  the  master  of 
the  household  in  revenge  for  a  flogging  thirty  years 
old,  but,  ten  years  later,  converted  and  penitent,  dies  on 
his  victim's  grave.  Oak  Openings  goes  further  yet  and 
converts  the  terrible  Scalping  Peter,  chief  of  an  Indian 
confederacy,  at  the  martyrdom  of  a  Methodist  mission 
ary,  Parson  Amen.  Indians  figure,  too,  in  the  trio  of 
political  novels,  Sa  tans  toe,  Chainbearer,  and  Redskins, 
which  go  to  uphold  the  patroon  rights  of  the  great  land 
owners  against  the  anti-rent  agitation.  The  first  is  the 
autobiography  of  Corny  Littlepage,  who,  after  divers  en 
tertaining  experiences  in  the  old  Knickerbocker  society 
of  New  York  and  Albany,  endured  some  sharp  encoun 
ters  with  the  Hurons  in  visiting  his  wilderness  grants. 
The  second,  less  successful,  comes  supposedly  from  the 
hand  of  his  son,  who  found  the  squatters  on  those  estates 
little  disposed  to  admit  his  landlordship.  In  the  third, 
polemical  and  almost  without  story,  are  depicted  the 
perplexities  of  the  latest  heir,  a  gilded  and  travelled 
youth,  who  threatens  darkly,  if  American  law  will  not 
protect  him  in  the  enjoyment  of  his  ancestral  wealth,  to 
go  and  live  in  Europe.  The  Indian  element  is  compara 
tively  slight  in  these  anti-rent  novels,  yet  so  far  as  the 
redmen  appear,  they  suggest  those  magnanimous  quali 
ties  so  freely  lavished  by  Cooper  upon  the  forest  chivalry 
of  his  Leather-Stocking  Tales.  This  roseate  view  of 


VI  NATIONAL  ERA:   PROSE  FICTION  2/5 

Indian  character  has  provoked  criticism.  Uncas  has 
hardly  found  credence.  "  Pooh,  pooh  ! "  as  one  of 
Cooper's  own  borderers  said,  "this  is  much  too  senti 
mental  for  your  Mohawks,  and  Oneidas,  and  Ononda- 
goes,  and  Tuscaroras."  In  contrast,  Paulding's 
Koningsmarke ,  a  tale  of  the  Delaware  Swedes,  paints 
the  Indians  as  hideous  and  silly  brutes,  and  Bird's  Nick 
of  the  Woods  takes  for  hero,  not  one  of  the  scalping 
savages,  but  their  relentless  murderer,  the  Jibbenainosay, 
maddened  avenger  of  his  ruined  home.  The  yellow  crop 
of  dime  novels  has  followed  Bird  and  Paulding  rather 
than  Cooper,  but  Mrs.  Jackson's  Ramona  presents  the 
nobler  view. 

The  Pilot  led  Cooper's  line  of  spirited  sea-stories. 
The  ever-popular  Red  Rover,  with  its  romantic  bucca 
neer,  and  well-exploded  train  of  surprises;  the  Water- 
Witch,  with  its  fantastic  smuggler  and  sea-green  sorceress  ; 
Wing-and-Wing,  with  its  gallant  French  corsair;  The 
Two  Admirals,  with  its  splendid  sea-fight  and  that 
manly  friendship  which  held  a  tempted  spirit  true ; 
Afloat  and  Ashore,  with  its  unforgettable  figures  of 
the  wily  South  American  savages;  its  continuation, 
Miles  Wallingford;  Jack  Tier,  with  its  queer  quintette 
clinging  to  the  keel  of  a  capsized  schooner  that  settles 
with  every  hour  down  nearer  to  the  impatient  sharks; 
The  Crater,  with  its  new  Robinson  Crusoe  and  its  in 
secure  Utopia  founded  on  a  volcano;  The  Sea-Lions, 
with  its  whaling  and  sealing,  pirate  gold  and  Ant 
arctic  ice,  all  have  variety  and  hazard  and  genuine 


276  AMERICAN   LITERATURE  CHAP. 

ocean  charm.  Mercedes  of  Castile,  too,  depicts  the 
eventful  cruise  of  Columbus,  and  Homeward  Bound  is 
the  narrative  of  an  Atlantic  voyage.  Cooper  outgoes  all 
American  competitors  in  extravagant  fabrications  of  salt 
water  adventure.  Herman  Melville's  South  Sea  stories 
are  more  direct  and  convincing,  his  Typee,  especially, 
having  the  realistic  shudder  of  an  author  who  barely  es 
caped  a  dishing  up  for  cannibals,  but  William  Starbuck 
Mayo  makes  too  extreme  a  claim  upon  credulity.  Yet 
there  is  entertainment  to  be  had  out  of  his  sensational 
and  stilted  Kaloolah,  named  from  the  Congo  bride  whom 
that  dauntless  adventurer,  Jonathan  Romer  of  Nantucket, 
rescued  from  slave-catchers  in  darkest  Africa,  and  taught 
to  speak  English  so  fluently  that  she  was  soon  alluding 
to  the  leafy  branches  overhead  as  "this  umbrageous 
canopy." 

What  Cooper  could  do  was  action.  Psychology  was 
out  of  his  range.  Attempting  to  follow  up  the  success  of 
The  Spy  by  another  Revolutionary  novel,  he  wrote  Lionel 
Lincoln,  located  at  Boston  in  the  glorious  days  of  Lex 
ington  and  Bunker  Hill,  but  instead  of  laying  his  stress 
on  military  manoeuvres  and  soldierly  heroism,  Cooper 
tried,  by  dint  of  an  idiot,  a  maniac,  and  two  sin-tortured 
women,  to  construct  a  tragedy  of  secret  guilt.  At  such 
Hawthornesque  business  he  showed  himself  but  a  bun 
gler.  The  poet  Dana  and  the  painter  Allston  could  do 
better,  one  with  the  furious  passions  of  Tom  Thornton 
and  Paul  Felton,  and  the  other  with  the  melodramatic 
Monaldi.  The  Revolutionary  romances  of  Cooper 


VI  NATIONAL  ERA:   PROSE  FICTION  2/7 

stopped  abruptly  with  the  unfortunate  Lionel  Lincoln, 
but,  in  the  South,  Simms  and  Kennedy  and  John  Esten 
Cooke  took  up  the  theme.  The  place  of  Simms,  the 
veteran  in  southern  letters,  is  at  once  honorable  and 
pathetic.  Striving  against  wind  and  tide,  he  produced 
as  many  stories  as  Cooper,  besides  a  goodly  amount  of 
poetry,  biography,  and  miscellany;  but  the  bulk  of  his 
writing  was  too  hasty  for  immortality.  His  Yemassee, 
a  tale  of  the  great  Indian  rising  in  early  Carolina,  chal 
lenged  Cooper  on  his  own  ground,  as  did  Kennedy's 
Rob  of  the  Bowl,  picturing  the  life  of  Colonial  Maryland, 
and  Cooke's  Fairfax,  a  story  of  the  Virginia  border.  In 
this  figures  Washington,  as  a  lad  of  sixteen,  together  with 
a  chivalric  young  redskin  after  Cooper's  own  heart,  Light- 
foot,  son  of  War  Eagle.  Even  better  than  these  are  the 
Revolutionary  romances,  Simms's  Partisan,  Scout,  Eutaw, 
and  others,  Kennedy's  Horseshoe  Robinson,  and  Cooke's 
Virginia  Comedians.  This  last  is  still  an  attractive  and 
suggestive  novel,  for  all  its  old-fashioned  English 
and  Byronesque  lover,  who  at  any  trying  moment 
"with  passionate  anger  .  .  .  grasped  his  breast,  and 
dug  his  nails  into  the  flesh,  until  they  were  stained  with 
blood." 

Cooper's  Dutch-descended  young  heroes  carry  them 
selves  more  coolly  under  provocation,  and  it  would  have 
been  well  for  their  author,  had  he  emulated  them  in  this 
respect.  He  had  a  stormy  temper,  from  which  appar 
ently  his  household  did  not  suffer,  as  his  domestic  affec 
tions  were  of  the  warmest,  but  which  was  continually 


2/8  AMERICAN   LITERATURE  CHAP. 

bringing  him  into  collision  with  the  public.  Naturally  a 
stiff  conservative  and  even,  in  a  bluff,  generous  fashion, 
an  aristocrat,  his  ardent  patriotism  led  him,  during  a 
long  foreign  residence,  to  exalt  democracy,  for  the  edifi 
cation  of  Europe,  in  a  series  of  three  novels,  The  Bravo, 
located  in  Venice,  Heidenmauer,  on  the  Rhine,  and  The 
Headsman,  among  the  Alps.  These  plunged  him  into 
newspaper  controversy,  in  which  he  vaunted  the  repub 
lican  institutions  of  his  native  land,  but  returning  to 
America,  after  an  absence  of  seven  years,  he  found  his 
country  cruder  and  more  strident  than  he  remembered 
it  and  absorbed  in  business  enterprise.  This  landed 
proprietor,  who  had  inherited  the  large  Cooperstown  es 
tate,  where  he  henceforth  made  his  home,  had  little  sym 
pathy  with  the  Wall  Street  spirit.  As  he  had  upbraided 
Europe  for  failing  to  admire  America,  he  now  proceeded 
to  scold  America  about  the  traits  that  he  disliked.  His 
charges  were  often  true,  but  his  manner  of  preferring 
them,  blunt  at  the  outset,  grew  more  and  more  offensive. 
In  addition  to  outspoken  newspaper  criticism,  he  tried 
to  satirize  the  nation  in  a  semi-allegorical  novel,  The 
Manikins,  but  his  hand  was  too  heavy  for  such  cunning 
work.  A  quarrel  with  his  neighbors  over  the  right  to  a 
tongue  of  picnic-ground  called  out  a  more  directly  abu 
sive  novel,  Home  as  Found,  sequel  to  Homeward  Bound. 
The  national  vanity  smarted,  and  the  newspapers,  by  way 
of  argument,  called  the  critic  names.  He  retorted,  most 
unexpectedly,  by  bringing  a  succession  of  libel  suits, 
until  he  had  actually  cowed  the  American  press.  In 


VI  NATIONAL  ERA:    PROSE  FICTION  279 

those  years,  Cooper,  in  Elizabethan  phrase,  walked  "up 
and  down  like  a  charged  musket."  Even  his  sea-stories 
grew  more  and  more  polemical,  pirates  and  ice-floes 
being  kept  waiting  on  the  expression  of  his  personal 
prejudices  against  Yankee  deacons,  Albany  legislators, 
editors,  and  Unitarians.  His  last  novel,  The  Ways  of 
the  Hour,  attacks  the  system  of  trial  by  jury. 

Cooper  died  in  1851,  having  written  in  the  latter  half 
of  his  life  thirty-two  novels,  five  volumes  of  naval  history 
and  biography,  ten  volumes  of  travels  and  sketches,  and 
a  countless  number  of  newspaper  columns.  Much  as  his 
intemperate  wrath  had  impaired  his  personal  popularity 
and  injured  the  literary  quality  of  his  later  work,  the 
best  of  his  romances  —  the  Leather-Stocking  series, 
The  Spy,  The  Pilot,  The  Red  Rover  —  keep  up  a 
steady  sale.  There  are  boys  yet  who  turn  from  the 
instructive  Rollo  Books  and  Bodley  Books,  and  even 
from  the  entertaining  pages  of  "Oliver  Optic,"  John 
T.  Trowbridge,  and  Howard  Pyle,  to  enjoy  starving 
on  a  raft  or  burning  at  a  stake  with  Cooper.  His 
tales  yield  a  pleasure  akin  to  that  of  physical  motion. 
Like  Scott,  he  may  be  slow  in  getting  under  way,  but, 
once  started,  there  is  a  forest  trail  to  follow  or  a  windy 
sea  to  sail.  He  loved  nature  and  nature's  children, — 
the  backwoodsman,  the  Indian,  the  tar.  His  well-bred 
characters  are  healthy,  comely,  and  good,  but  not  inter 
esting.  His  heroines  have  been  called  "  sticks  of  barley 
candy,"  and  his  heroes,  true  to  Yale  tradition,  are  athletic. 
The  reader  feels  comfortably  sure,  at  the  outset  of  a 


280  AMERICAN   LITERATURE  CHAP. 

story,  that  Strength  and  Sweetness  will  wed  in  the  last 
chapter,  but  not  until  a  profusion  of  deadly  perils  shall 
have  been  sprung  upon  them  and  the  most  unlikely 
people  discovered  to  be  their  blood-relations.  The  plot 
may  be  careless,  the  mystery  stale,  the  hazards  absurdly 
unnecessary,  the  escapes  incredible,  the  syntax  and 
diction  faulty,  but  the  story  carries  by  its  candid  appeal 
to  excitement,  curiosity,  and  the  joy  of  out-of-doors. 
The  novels  of  Cooper's  grand-niece,  Constance  Fenimore 
Woolson,  suggest  his  vigorous  hand,  but  with  added  subtlety 
lose  in  strength,  and  with  a  more  delicate  art  miss  the 
broad  and  sweeping  effects  that  make  for  popular  fame. 

II.  Humor  and  Pathos.  —  The  romance  of  adventure 
hurries  on  from  one  exciting  event  to  another,  but  there 
is  a  quieter  fiction,  which  loves  to  dwell,  with  smiles  and 
tears,  on  situations  of  a  simple  sort.  Of  this  our  first 
American  creator  is  WASHINGTON  IRVING,  whose  literary 
activity  began  some  thirteen  years  before  Cooper's. 

When  the  English  took  New  Netherlands,  Fort  Orange 
became  Albany,  and  New  Amsterdam  became  New  York, 
but  Dutch  manners  and  customs  long  prevailed  in  the 
conquered  colony,  giving  a  unique  and  mellow  coloring 
to  the  life  along  the  Hudson.  In  Colonial  times,  it  was 
a  land  picturesque  with  wind-mills  and  canals,  yellow- 
brick  gables,  tiled  roofs,  and  oddly-devised  weather 
cocks.  Albany  was  the  centre  of  the  fur-trade,  but  the 
New  York  streets,  bordered  by  the  well-scoured  stoops 
on  which  rotund  burgomasters  smoked  the  evening  pipe, 
already  gave  forth  the  sounds  of  a  keen  and  varied  traffic. 


VI  NATIONAL  ERA:   PROSE  FICTION  28 1 

Even  in  1783,  when  Irving  was  born,  his  native  city  still 
kept  much  of  the  quaint  Dutch  aspect.  This  the  lad 
enjoyed,  as  he  enjoyed  everything,  although  his  father,  a 
Scotchman  and  a  Presbyterian  deacon,  was  not  disposed 
to  further  his  talent  for  amusement.  Irving's  boyish 
morals  betrayed,  indeed,  a  New  York  laxity,  for  the 
story  goes  that  he  would  read  in  school  Robinson  Crusoe 
and  Sinbad  the  Sailor  instead  of  his  arithmetic  and  then 
bargain  with  some  matter-of-fact  fellow  to  do  his  sums 
for  him  in  trade  for  a  composition.  He  was  a  hardened 
theatre-goer,  too,  slipping  away  after  supper  without  his 
father's  knowledge,  running  home  for  family  prayers  at 
nine  o'clock,  just  at  the  crisis  of  the  play,  bidding 
a  decorous  good-night  to  the  household  and  retiring 
meekly  to  his  room,  only  to  slip  out  of  his  window  and 
down  the  roof,  and  dash  for  the  last  act.  His  gentle 
English  mother  may  have  sighed  over  the  unpressed 
pillow,  but  he  was  her  youngest  and  of  fragile  build. 
Moreover,  how  could  a  boy  named  after  Washington 
come  to  any  harm?  So  he  appears  to  have  had  life 
much  his  own  merry  way,  roaming  about  the  Hudson 
River  region  and  dancing  in  gay  cities,  while  his  elder 
brothers  were  at  their  studies  in  Columbia  College.  At 
sixteen,  this  ill-schooled  stripling  entered  a  law-office, 
where  he  spent  his  time  agreeably  in  reading  the  Eng 
lish  novelists  and  poets.  Now  and  then  he  sent  an 
Addisonian  sketch,  lightly  satiric,  over  the  signature  of 
Jonathan  Oldstyle,  to  the  Morning  Chronicle,  a  daily 
newspaper  which  his  brother  Peter  had  just  ventured. 


282  AMERICAN   LITERATURE  CHAP. 

At  twenty-one  his  health  was  so  delicate  that  his 
brothers  affectionately  insisted  on  giving  him  a  trip 
abroad.  His  blithe  disposition  made  him  an  excellent 
traveller,  his  personal  graces  admitted  him  to  select 
salons  and  balls  and  dinner-tables,  and  all  his  aesthetic 
tastes  and  tendencies  gathered  strength  from  the  Old 
World  atmosphere.  After  two  years  of  delightful 
idling,  he  returned  home  and  was  admitted  to  the  bar, 
but  society  was  more  to  his  mind.  This  young  Prince 
Charming,  with  his  foreign  aroma  and  leisurely,  pleas 
ure-loving  ways,  was  welcome  wherever  he  went.  He 
amused  himself  with  wine  suppers  in  New  York  and 
with  belles  in  Baltimore,  and,  as  a  minor  diversion, 
with  the  Salmagundi  papers.  His  eldest  brother, 
William  Irving,  and  his  friend  from  boyhood,  James  K. 
Paulding,  joined  with  him  in  the  publication  of  this 
little  fortnightly,  modelled  on  the  Spectator  and  under 
taking  to  "  present  a  striking  picture  of  the  town." 
Its  airy  nonchalance  was  made  evident  in  the  open 
ing  sentences  of  the  first  number :  "  As  everybody 
knows,  or  ought  to  know,  what  a  Salmagund  is,  we 
shall  spare  ourselves  the  trouble  of  an  explanation; 
besides,  we  despise  trouble  as  we  do  everything  low 
and  mean,  and  hold  the  man  who  would  incur  it  un 
necessarily  as  an  object  worthy  our  highest  pity  and 
contempt.  Neither  will  we  puzzle  our  heads  to  give  an 
account  of  ourselves,  for  two  reasons :  first,  because  it 
is  nobody's  business ;  secondly,  because  if  it  were,  we 
do  not  hold  ourselves  bound  to  attend  to  anybody's 


VI  NATIONAL  ERA:   PROSE  FICTION  283 

business  but  our  own ;  and  even  that  we  take  the  lib 
erty  of  neglecting,  when  it  suits  our  inclination."  Con 
sistently  with  this  closing  sentiment,  the  happy-go-lucky 
young  editors,  who  tickled  the  public  curiosity  with 
their  pen-names  and  sly  hints,  having  issued  twenty 
numbers  with  much  applause  and  finding  themselves 
on  the  verge  of  a  financial  success,  threw  Salmagundi 
over  and  looked  about  for  a  new  jest. 

This  was  speedily  forthcoming.  Dr.  Mitchell  of  the 
New  York  Historical  Society  had  published  a  somewhat 
pompous  and  pedantic  Picture  of  New  York.  Irving 
and  his  brother  Peter  thought  it  would  be  great  fun 
to  parody  this  production,  but  business  called  Peter 
to  Europe,  so  that  their  plan  was  carried  out  by  the 
arch-rogue  alone.  The  book,  published  when  Irving 
was  twenty-six  years  old,  is  admirable  fooling.  It 
purports  to  be  printed  from  a  blotted  manuscript  left 
at  a  New  York  inn  by  an  impecunious  lodger,  a  touchy 
and  inquisitive  old  body  answering  to  the  name  of 
Dietrich  Knickerbocker.  An  unsuspicious  public  sat 
gravely  down  to  read  the  "  history  of  New  York  from 
the  beginning  of  the  world  to  the  end  of  the  Dutch 
dynasty,"  but  opened  eyes  wider  and  wider  over  the 
animated  accounts  of  the  three  Dutch  governors  of 
New  Amsterdam,  —  Walter  the  Doubter,  "  exactly  five 
feet  six  inches  in  height  and  six  feet  five  inches  in 
circumference,"  whose  "  habits  were  as  regular  as  his 
person,"  for  "he  daily  took  his  four  stated  meals, 
appropriating  exactly  an  hour  to  each  j  he  smoked  and 


284  AMERICAN   LITERATURE  CHAP. 

doubted  eight  hours,  and  he  slept  the  remaining 
twelve ; "  William  the  Testy,  "  a  brisk,  wiry,  waspish 
little  old  gentleman,"  whose  "  cheeks  were  scorched 
into  a  dusky  red,  by  two  fiery  little  gray  eyes,"  whose 
nose  turned  up  and  the  corners  of  whose  mouth  turned 
down  "  pretty  much  like  the  muzzle  of  an  irritable 
pug-dog ;  "  and  Peter  the  Headstrong,  with  his  resplen 
dent  wooden  leg  mounted  with  silver  and  his  "  brim 
stone-colored  breeches  .  .  .  glaring  in  the  sunbeams." 
The  Yankees  appear  to  small  advantage  as  a  "guess 
ing,  questioning,  swapping,  pumpkin-eating,  molasses- 
daubing,  shingle- splitting,  cider-watering,  horse-jockeying, 
notion-peddling  crew,"  who  fight  under  the  standard 
of  a  dried  codfish :  but  the  jocund  satire  spends  itself 
mainly  upon  the  smoke-enveloped  figures  of  the  fat 
Dutch  burghers.  The  outraged  descendants  of  the 
"  waddling  .  .  .  chivalry  of  the  Hudson  "  did  not  easily 
forgive  Irving  for  his  caricature,  but  the  book  made 
him  famous  at  home  and  called  attention  abroad  to 
"  American  humor."  As  a  sample  of  that  national  ware, 
the  Knickerbocker  History  of  New  York  is  more  truly 
representative  than  the  absurdities  of  "Sam  Slick"  and 
"Major  Jack  Downing,"  "Mrs.  Partington,"  "Josh 
Billings,"  "Josiah  Allen's  Wife  "  and  the  "funny-man" 
rank  and  file.  Our  western  jokes  may  be  big  and  broad 
as  the  prairies,  but  this  "  Munchausen  vein  of  exaggera 
tion  run  mad  "  is  promptly  foiled,  so  prone  are  Ameri 
cans  to  scoff  at  their  own  boasts,  by  a  whimsical  twist 
that  brings  one  up  against  a  blank  wall  of  surprise. 


VI  NATIONAL   ERA:    PROSE  FICTION  285 

The  man  who  was  so  strong  that  his  shadow,  falling 
on  a  .  child,  killed  it,  is  own  cousin  to  the  man  who 
was  so  tall  that  he  had  to  climb  a  ladder  to  shave  him 
self.  The  peculiar  dryness  especially  characteristic  of 
Yankee  drollery  is  better  illustrated  from  Franklin's 
shrewd  proverbs  than  from  Irving's  spontaneous  and 
sparkling  descriptions,  but  the  extravagance,  mock 
gravity,  and  republican  irreverence  which  belong  to 
American  humor  are  here.  Irving  pulls  as  long  a 
face  as  ever  did  that  dear  delight  of  lecture-halls, 
"Artemus  Ward,"  whether  the  make-believe  historian  is 
recounting  how  a  sunbeam,  falling  on  the  ruby  nose  of 
Antony  the  Trumpeter,  as  he  leaned  over  the  ship's 
side,  "  shot  straightway  down,  hissing  hot,  into  the 
water,  and  killed  a  mighty  sturgeon  that  was  sporting 
beside  the  vessel,"  or  whether  he  is  most  sacrilegiously 
chanting  the  battle  of  Fort  Christina,  from  that  epic 
moment  when  "  the  immortal  deities,  who  whilom  had 
seen  service  at  the  '  affair '  of  Troy  —  now  mounted 
their  feather-bed  clouds  and  sailed  over  the  plain," 
to  the  glorious  hour  when  "Victory,  in  the  likeness  of 
a  gigantic  ox-fly,  sat  perched  upon  the  cocked  hat 
of  the  gallant  Stuyvesant."  The  book  is  not  only  a 
literary  burlesque,  like  Robert  Grant's  Little  Tin  Gods 
on  Wheels,  but  it  is  as  complete  a  hoax  as  Aldrich's 
Marjorie  Daw.  Irving  has  not,  in  as  high  a  degree, 
at  least,  as  the  irrepressible  "  Mark  Twain,"  the  genius 
for  the  unexpected,  he  is  not  so  trenchant  as  Lowell 
nor  so  verbally  adroit  as  Holmes,  but  he  is  as  true  a 


286  AMERICAN   LITERATURE  CHAP. 

humorist  as  any  one  of  these.  That  gracious  quality 
in  personality,  that  "  mixture  of  love  and  wit,"  that 
keen  perception,  so  alert  in  Lincoln  even  when  life 
was  at  its  saddest,  of  the  essential  incongruity  in  mortal 
things,  is  Irving's.  In  this  first  book,  the  spectacle  of 
human  blundering  was  playfully  presented  and  mirth 
fully  surveyed,  but  clearly  there  was  needed  only  a 
little  shifting  of  the  scene,  a  little  softening  of  the 
tone,  to  yield,  instead  of  humor,  the  allied  effect  of 
pathos. 

Before  the  History  of  New  York  was  quite  completed, 
the  death  of  his  betrothed,  a  gentle  girl  of  seventeen, 
gave  to  Irving's  mind  the  pensive  cast  which  was 
peculiarly  acceptable  to  the  frank  sensibilities  of  his 
day  and  generation.  If  he  did  not  cherish  his  grief,  at 
least  it  cherished  him.  His  book  brought  him  fame  and 
money,  and  he  lounged  away  a  few  years  more  in 
America  and  Europe  gracefully  enough,  but  the  first 
boyish  brightness  had  suffered  change.  "  The  career  of 
gayety  and  notoriety,"  he  wrote,  "soon  palled  on  me. 
I  seemed  to  drift  about  without  aim  or  object,  at  the 
mercy  of  every  breeze  ;  my  heart  wanted  anchorage.  I 
was  naturally  susceptible,  and  tried  to  form  other 
attachments,  but  my  heart  would  not  hold  on ;  it  would 
continually  recur  to  what  it  had  lost;  and  whenever 
there  was  a  pause  in  the  hurry  of  novelty  and  excite 
ment,  I  would  sink  into  dismal  dejection.  For  years 
I  could  not  talk  on  the  subject  of  this  hopeless  regret ; 
I  could  not  even  mention  her  name ;  but  her  image  was 


VI  NATIONAL  ERA:   PROSE  FICTION  28/ 

continually  before  me,  and  I  dreamt  of  her  incessantly." 
The  War  of  1812,  with  its  attendant  hard  times,  stirred 
him  to  a  fitful  energy.  The  Irving  property  was  in  the 
hardware  business,  and  as  one  mercantile  house  failed 
after  another,  he  took  up  his  pen  more  resolutely  and 
tried  to  conduct  a  magazine,  but  soon  revolted  from  the 
drudgery  of  stated  tasks.  He  was  in  England,  a  man  of 
thirty-five,  when  "  Irving  Brothers,"  after  a  long  struggle, 
went  down.  Anxious  as  he  was  to  come  to  the  family 
relief,  he  had  to  do  it  in  his  own  way.  He  refused  an 
editorial  salary  of  a  thousand  guineas,  from  dislike  both 
of  politics  and  routine,  and  put  aside  flattering  offers 
from  the  London  Quarterly,  because  its  attitude  toward 
America  had  been  unfriendly.  What  he  could  do  was 
to  write  The  Sketch-Book,  and  it  was  all-sufficient.  "  I 
seek,"  he  had  said,  "only  to  blow  a  flute  accompani 
ment  in  the  national  concert,"  but  the  clear,  sweet  notes 
sounded  further  than  any  American  strain  had  as  yet 
gone.  The  unbounded  gratification  of  his  country  both 
touched  and  flurried  the  sensitive  author.  London,  too, 
busy  as  the  English  were  in  reading  Scott  and  Byron, 
loaded  him  with  praises,  which  he  did  not  take  too 
seriously.  "  It  has  been  a  matter  of  marvel,"  he  wrote, 
"  to  my  European  readers,  that  a  man  from  the  wilds 
of  America  should  express  himself  in  tolerable  English. 
I  was  looked  upon  as  something  new  and  strange  in  liter 
ature  ;  a  kind  of  demi-savage,  with  a  feather  in  his  hand, 
instead  of  on  his  head." 

Yet  nothing  could  well  be  more  elegant  and  urbane 


288  AMERICAN   LITERATURE  CHAP. 

than  the  varied  contents  of  The  Sketch-Book,  —  amiable 
musings,  in  pellucid,  polished  English,  on  Westminster 
Abbey,  Stratford- on- Avon,  Rural  Life  in  England, 
sprightly  accounts  of  the  Christmas  festivities  in  an  Eng 
lish  country-house,  and  miscellaneous  sketches  and  tales 
often  colored  by  "  that  kind  of  melancholy  fancying, 
which  has  in  it  something  sweeter  even  than  pleasure." 
Byron  shed  tears  over  The  Broken  Heart,  but  The  Pride 
of  the  Village,  The  Widow  and  Her  Son,  Rural  Fttn- 
erals  are  not  less  touching,  if,  indeed,  the  sensibilities 
do  not  spring  to  their  guard  against  such  deliberate  and 
undisguised  attack.  Pathos  is  in  literature  an  even 
more  ticklish  quality  than  humor.  If  much  of  our  old- 
fashioned  fun,  including  certain  passages  from  the  pen  of 
Dietrich  Knickerbocker,  sounds  to-day  both  coarse  and 
silly,  old-fashioned  sentiment  is  likely  to  set  one  laugh 
ing.  Irving,  however,  has  the  saving  grace  of  pleasant 
ness.  He  never  forgets  to  entertain,  even  in  a  graveyard. 
Readers  of  these  Sketch-Book  reveries  are  constantly 
reminded  of  the  author's  own  picture  of  himself  reclin 
ing  on  a  half-sunken  tombstone  in  the  shadow  of  an  ivied 
Gothic  church,  taking  example  from  the  setting  sun  which 
"lit  up  all  nature  with  a  melancholy  smile." 

"Prue  and  her  sex  regard  sentiment  more  than 
action,"  once  said  a  dreamy  old  book-keeper  who 
seldom  said  amiss,  and  it  would  seem  to  be  true  that 
the  American  women  successful  in  fiction,  from  the  rainy 
day  of  The  Wide,  Wide  World,  have  depended  in  large 
degree  on  the  pathetic.  Adeline  D.  T.  Whitney  and 


VI  NATIONAL  ERA:    PROSE  FICTION  289 

eminently  Louisa  Alcott  have  the  secret  of  laughter  as 
well  as  of  tears,  but  their  abiding  charm  for  girlhood 
is  less  in  the  story  told  than  in  the  tenderness  of  the 
telling.  HARRIET  BEECHER  STOWE  and  ELIZABETH  STUART 
PHELPS  WARD  abound  in  merriment,  but  the  chances 
are  against  the  reader  who  attempts  to  get  through 
Uncle  Tom's  Cabin  or  The  Madonna  of  the  Tubs  with 
out  a  "  cry."  That  sprightly  chronicler,  Kate  Douglas 
Wiggin  Riggs,  often  calls  for  the  whisk  of  the  handker 
chief.  Frances  Hodgson  Burnett  plays  on  the  softer 
emotions,  and  Margaret  Deland,  for  all  her  insistence 
upon  "  problems,"  is  not  read  for  theories  of  theology 
and  sociology,  nor  for  chain  of  events,  but  for  sympathetic 
pleasure  and  sympathetic  pain. 

The  Sketch-Book  contains  the  two  immortal  Hudson 
River  legends,  Rip  Van  Winkle  and  Sleepy  Hollow,  to 
gether  with  a  German  story.  A  second  volume  of  deli 
cate  English  sketches,  entitled  Bracebridge  Hall,  makes 
space  for  two  love-tales,  one  of  Spain  and  one  of  Nor 
mandy,  and  for  more  of  the  old  Dutch  traditions.  A 
third  volume,  Tales  of  a  Traveller,  finally  abandons 
essay  for  narrative.  The  most  of  these  stories  are 
European,  but  the  best  return  to  the  haunted  headlands 
of  the  Hudson.  A  sojourn  of  three  years  and  more  in 
Spain  bore  fruit  not  only  in  the  Life  of  Columbus, 
Companions  of  Columbus,  Conquest  of  Granada,  and 
Mahomet,  books  in  which  historical  material  is  pre 
sented  with  the  grace  and  vivacity  of  fiction,  but  in 
that  crowning  work,  the  Alhambra,  which  glows  with 
u 


2QO  AMERICAN   LITERATURE  CHAP. 

the  rich  beauty  of  Spanish  tradition.  Of  what  is  techni 
cally  termed  "  local  color  "  Irving  was  a  master.  Brace- 
bridge  Hall  reflects  the  easy,  abundant,  cultivated  life  of 
an  English  country-seat  as  perfectly  as  the  Alhambra 
catches  the  romantic  impression  of  Spain,  or  the 
Hudson  River  legends  hold  the  drowsy,  gossipy,  homely 
atmosphere  of  the  old  Dutch  villages. 

After  an  absence  of  seventeen  years,  Irving  came 
again  to  his  native  land,  where  he  was  hailed  as  the 
lord  of  American  letters.  He  made  himself  a  home, 
well-named  Sunnyside,  at  Tarrytown,  on  the  banks  of  the 
Hudson,  not  far  from  Sleepy  Hollow.  The  Dutch  stone 
cottage,  "modelled  after  the  cocked  hat  of  Peter  the 
Headstrong,"  with  a  weather-cock  perched  on  every 
gable,  and  a  Melrose  ivy  overrunning  the  walls,  was 
the  shelter  of  loving  nieces  and  the  resort  of  literary 
pilgrims.  Here  he  happily  spent  his  remaining  life,  with 
the  exception  of  four  years  passed  in  Madrid  as  Minister 
to  Spain.  Astonished  and  delighted  by  the  swift  expan 
sion  of  America,  he  journeyed  through  the  newly  settled 
regions,  garnering  these  experiences  in  A  Tour  on  the 
Prairies.  Astoria  and  Captain  Bonneville,  too,  deal 
with  the  Far  West,  and  an  aftermath  of  sketches,  col 
lected  under  the  name  of  Wolferfs  Roost,  treats  in 
several  instances  of  western  themes.  Lives  of  Gold 
smith,  with  whose  gay  and  gentle  spirit  Irving  had 
always  been  in  peculiar  sympathy,  and  of  Washington, 
who  seventy  years  before  had  laid  a  hand  of  blessing 
on  his  head,  worthily  rounded  out  his  literary  labors. 


VI  NATIONAL  ERA:   PROSE  FICTION  2QI 

Modest,  kindly,  and  serene,  he  lived  into  ripeness  of 
years,  becoming,  according  to  the  occupant  of  Harper's 
Easy  Chair,  as  "  quaint  a  figure  "  as  the  old  Dietrich 
himself.  "He  might  have  been  seen  on  an  autumnal 
afternoon  tripping  with  an  elastic  step  along  Broadway, 
with  '  low  quartered '  shoes  neatly  tied,  and  a  Talma 
cloak,  a  short  garment  that  hangs  from  the  shoulders 
like  the  cape  of  a  coat.  There  was  a  chirping,  cheery, 
old-school  air  in  his  appearance  which  was  undeniably 
Dutch,  and  most  harmonious  with  the  associations  of 
his  writing.  He  seemed,  indeed,  to  have  stepped  out 
of  his  own  books;  and  the  cordial  grace  and  humor 
of  his  address,  if  he  stopped  for  a  passing  chat,  were 
delightfully  characteristic." 

Until  Irving's  death,  which  befell  at  Sunnyside  in 
1859,  there  was  little  abatement  in  the  praise.  His 
sweetness  and  shyness  disarmed  criticism.  He  was,  in 
deed,  sometimes  charged  with  lack  of  moral  earnestness. 
Hazlitt  called  him  "  a  mere  filagree  man."  England 
complained,  now  and  then,  of  his  want  of  originality,  in 
that  his  sketches,  so  exquisitely  languaged,  were  like 
"  patterns  taken  in  silk  paper  "  from  the  English  classics. 
"  He  brought  no  new  earth,  no  sprig  of  laurel  gathered 
in  the  wilderness,  no  red  bird's  wing."  Yet,  in  point  of 
fact,  the  Hudson  River  legends,  picturing  weird  lights 
and  shadows  on  the  quiet  hills,  and  on  the  human  life, 
as  quiet,  at  their  feet,  were  fresh  in  literature.  Nor  has 
Irving's  charm  yet  faded,  although  the  twinkle  holds  its 
own  better  than  the  tear.  He  is  a  delightful  quiz,  for 


2Q2  AMERICAN   LITERATURE  CHAP. 

through  all  the  badinage  his  manner  keeps  its  winning 
courtesy.  His  style,  with  its  rare  clearness  and  finish,  is 
so  artistic  that  it  seems  artless.  His  is  the  golden  touch 
by  which  the  simplest  things  grow  precious,  like  his 
Dutch  tea-table  whereon  the  goodies  were  "mingled 
higgledy-piggledy  .  .  .  with  the  motherly  tea-pot  send 
ing  up  its  cloud  of  vapor  from  the  midst."  As  for  story 
telling,  he  merely  sketches  a  situation  charged  with  some 
romantic,  humorous,  or  tender  feeling,  and  then  pro 
ceeds  in  leisurely  fashion  to  make  the  most  of  it.  His 
literary  influence  in  America  has  been  wide  and  varied, 
yet  few  of  our  authors  are  essentially  akin  to  him. 
Paulding,  at  his  best  in  The  Dutchman's  Fireside,  had 
Irving's  glee  without  his  grace.  Donald  G.  Mitchell, 
better  known  as  "  Ik  Marvel,"  follows  Irving,  especially 
in  Reveries  of  a  Bachelor  and  Dream  Life,  but  the  un 
relieved  sentiment  cloys.  More  truly  of  the  Irving  type, 
with  a  Brook  Farm  fervor  added,  was  the  distinguished 
editor,  lecturer,  and  patriot,  GEORGE  WILLIAM  CURTIS. 
That  shining  soul,  "loyal  to  whatever  is  generous  and 
humane,  full  of  sweet  hope,  and  faith,  and  devotion," 
is  radiant  still  in  the  jewel  lights  of  Prue  and  I. 

III.  Mystery  and  Terror.  —  Working  from  the  sketch, 
Irving  achieved  the  tale.  Intent  as  this  narrator  was  on 
the  mirth  and  sadness  of  life,  the  limits  of  the  short  story 
served  him  better,  for  an  unbroken  emotional  impression, 
than  the  elaborated  novel.  Far  more  is  brevity  essential 
to  that  concentration  of  attention,  that  intensity  of  horror, 
dread,  distress  caused  by  the  fictions  of  EDGAR  ALLAN  POE. 


VI  NATIONAL  ERA:   PROSE  FICTION  293 

In  his  essay  on  The  Poetic  Principle  Poe  declared  the 
phrase  "  a  long  poem  "  to  be  a  contradiction  in  terms. 
Lyrist  that  he  was,  he  maintained  that  the  extent  of  a 
poem  should  be  measured  by  the  capability  of  the  reader 
for  a  continuous  rapture  of  response.  "  But  all  excite 
ments  are,  through  a  psychal  necessity,  transient.  That 
degree  of  excitement  which  would  entitle  a  poem  to  be 
so  called  at  all  cannot  be  sustained  throughout  a  com 
position  of  any  great  length.  After  the  lapse  of  half  an 
hour,  at  the  very  utmost,  it  flags  —  fails  —  a  revulsion 
ensues  —  and  then  the  poem  is,  in  effect,  and  in  fact, 
no  longer  such."  This  principle  Poe  consistently  applied 
to  his  own  poems  and  adapted  to  his  tales,  which,  though 
longer  indeed  than  his  impassioned  requiems,  can  be  read 
at  a  single  sitting,  and  allow  the  dominance  of  a  single 
mood.  Indeed,  the  mind  could  not  long  maintain  the 
keenness  of  curiosity  that  they  arouse,  nor  the  heart 
endure  their  rack  of  fright  and  anguish. 

Poe's  first  stroke  of  visible  success  was  made  with  the 
tale  A  Manuscript  found  in  a  Bottle,  which  took  a  one- 
huridred-dollar  prize  in  a  newspaper  story-competition. 
Ten  years  after,  he  won  a  second  hundred-dollar  prize 
with  The  Gold-Bug.  His  stories  were  printed  in  maga 
zines  and  newspapers,  especially  in  those  of  which  he 
chanced  to  be  editor.  A  volume  entitled  Tales  of  the 
Grotesque  and  Arabesque  was  brought  out  by  him  in 
1840,  and  another  collection  of  his  stories  five  years 
later.  A  survey  of  these  fictions  calls  to  mind,  what  the 
transcendent  power  of  Poe's  analytic  and  supernatural  tales 


2Q4  AMERICAN   LITERATURE  CHAP. 

often  causes  to  be  forgotten,  the  versatility  of  his  narra 
tive  genius.  Arthur  Gordon  Pym  opens  and  proceeds 
with  the  realistic  detail  of  a  Robinson  Crusoe,  although 
no  brain  but  Poe's  could  have  conceived  that  climax  of 
white  horror.  His  extravaganzas  are  ingenious,  and 
while  the  sweetness  of  humor  was  not  his,  such  stories 
as  The  Thousand-and- Second  Tale  of  Scheherazade  have 
a  flavor  of  pleasantry  that  is  not  all  sardonic.  The  bulk 
of  Poe's  fictions,  however,  fall  under  the  two  main  head 
ings  of  mystery  and  terror. 

Poe's  mind  was  a  singular  compound  of  poetry  and 
mathematics.  It  was  as  true  of  him  as  of  his  Prince 
Prospero  in  The  Masque  of  the  Red  Death  that  "his 
plans  were  bold  and  fiery,  and  his  conceptions  glowed 
with  barbaric  lustre.  There  are  some  who  would  have 
thought  him  mad."  But  side  by  side  with  his  most 
delirious  emotions  and  bizarre  imaginations  went  an  icy 
and  precise  reason.  The  secret  cipher  was  as  much  his 
own  as  the  opium  ecstasy.  He  liked  to  ferret  out  a 
criminal  case.  The  Murders  in  the  Rue  Morgue  and 
The  Purloined  Letter  well  illustrate  that  cold,  persistent 
logic  of  his  detective  stories.  In  his  Monsieur  Dupin 
we  have  the  original  of  Sherlock  Holmes.  Anna  Katha 
rine  Green  Rohlfs,  with  her  Leavenworth  Case,  is  the 
foremost  representative  in  America  to-day  of  police-court 
fiction,  but  no  successor  has  equalled  Poe  in  dignifying 
by  the  severity  of  the  intellectual  process  the  sensational 
material  belonging  to  this  class  of  tales.  A  somewhat 
similar  mental  value  attaches  to  Poe's  stories  of  pseudo- 


VI  NATIONAL  ERA:   PROSE  FICTION  2Q5 

science,  Adventures  of  One  Hans  Pfaall,  Descent  into  a 
Maelstrom,  and  their  like.  His  narrative  moves  with  a 
serious  deliberation  and  attention  to  detail  that  almost 
convinces  the  reader,  especially  as,  upon  the  basal  im 
possibility,  a  score  of  most  accurately  calculated  proba 
bilities  are  constructed.  Jules  Verne,  in  France,  who 
has  written  a  continuation  of  Arthur  Gordon  Pym,  re 
produces  the  method,  as  does  our  own  Frank  R.  Stock 
ton,  whose  preposterous  hoaxes  are  developed  with  this 
same  patient  respect  for  the  minutiae  of  truth.  All  this 
play  of  thought  in  Poe  connects  with  his  restless  craving 
for  superhuman  knowledge.  He  suggested  once  that  the 
physical  universe  exists  only  to  allay,  while  yet  it  baffles, 
this  inherent  longing  of  humanity.  He  had  heard  it 
"whispered  in  Aidenn  "  that  "of  this  infinity  of  matter, 
the  sole  purpose  is  to  afford  infinite  springs,  at  which  the 
soul  may  allay  the  thirst  to  know  which  is  forever  un 
quenchable  within  it  —  since  to  quench  it  would  be  to 
extinguish  the  soul's  self." 

But  Poe's  curiosity  has  upon  it  something  morbid  and 
unholy.  It  haunts  the  realms  of  mesmerism,  torture, 
pestilence,  of  epilepsy,  catalepsy,  and  all  mysterious 
diseases,  it  pries  into  the  opium  dream,  the  swoon, 
hysteria,  delirium,  insanity,  it  listens  at  the  gate  of  the 
tomb  for  the  awakening  agonies  of  the  prematurely 
buried,  or  peers  in  upon  the  gruesome  processes  of 
bodily  decay.  His  heroines  of  the  mellifluous  names, 
Morella,  Lygeia,  have  a  strange,  unlawful  lore,  even  as 
they  droop,  with  Madeline,  Berenice,  Rowena,  Eleonora, 


296  AMERICAN  LITERATURE  CHAP. 

under  weird  and  wasting  illnesses.  He  not  only  con 
ceives,  as  in  the  case  of  Roderick  Usher,  a  maddening 
intensification  of  sense  impressions,  but  advances  the 
idea,  active  in  modern  French  Symbolism,  of  an  inter 
change  among  the  functions  of  the  senses,  so  that  sights, 
for  instance,  should  affect  the  brain  as  sounds.  He 
broods  upon  the  sensations  of  the  dying  and  the  dead, 
for  he  confounds  the  immortal  with  mortality  and  has 
the  spirit  vaguely  conscious,  through  the  ages,  of  its  dark 
tenement,  the  grave.  He  crosses  the  dim  borderland 
between  the  natural  and  supernatural,  picturing  wild 
tragedies  of  metempsychosis  or,  as  in  Lygeia,  "  a  hideous 
drama  of  revivification,"  where  "each  agony  wore  the 
aspect  of  a  struggle  with  some  invisible  foe."  Allied  to 
these  elements  of  terror  are  all  sinister  passions,  envy, 
suspicion,  hate,  revenge.  Faces  are  "  cadaverously  wan," 
with  "pale  lips  writhing,"  with  eyes  of  "mad  hilarity" 
or  of  a  "glassy  stare."  Nature  is  spectral  with  "  white 
trunks  of  decayed  trees  "  and  "  yellow  ghastly  waters," 
or  ominous  with  "lurid  tarn"  and  "blood-red  moon." 
The  horrors  come  to  pass  within  "  gloomy,  gray,  heredi 
tary  walls,"  in  chambers  of  "  melancholy  vaulting,"  of 
"gorgeous  and  fantastic  draperies"  and  "Bedlam  pat 
terns"  traced  in  "carpets  of  tufted  gold,"  —  unless,  in 
deed,  the  desperate  scene  is  laid  in  the  catacombs  of  the 
Montresors  or  the  dungeons  of  the  Inquisition.  Anxiety 
and  dread  are  augmented  by  some  external  suggestion 
of  mystery.  There  are  shadowy  nooks  of  the  hall  and 
sable  recesses  of  the  fretted  ceiling  that  the  eye  vainly 


vi  NATIONAL  ERA:   PROSE  FICTION  297 

tries  to  pierce ;  the  figured  tapestries  are  moved  by  un 
canny  winds  or  tremble  to  the  vibration  of  strange  music. 
Beyond  the  mystery  is  always  a  terror.  These  piteous 
characters,  phantasms  of  humanity  rather  than  actual 
men  and  women,  are  at  the  mercy  of  demoniac  power. 
There  is  the  sense  of  pursuit,  of  a  lurking  danger,  of  a 
watchful  malice,  of  an  irresistible  doom. 

"  Mimes,  in  the  form  of  God  on  high, 

Mutter  and  mumble  low, 
And  hither  and  thither  fly; 

Mere  puppets  they,  who  come  and  go 
At  bidding  of  vast,  formless  things 
That  shift  the  scenery  to  and  fro, 
Flapping  from  out  their  condor  wings 
Invisible  Woe." 

How  much  of  all  this  was  due  to  the  alcohol  and 
opium  in  Poe's  blood  no  one  would  be  more  curious 
than  himself  to  learn.  It  is  nevertheless  high  art.  The 
perfect  correspondence  between  scene  and  deed,  the 
unity  of  tone  and  color  preserved  throughout,  the  un 
swerving  sweep  to  a  climax,  the  significant  selection  of 
details,  the  controlled,  distinct,  and  brilliant  style,  the 
Hebrew  symmetry  of  structure,  the  concrete  words  sur 
charged  with  beauty  and  emotion,  the  solemn,  thrilling 
cadences,  the  harmonious  combination  of  syllables,  the 
symbolism  of  the  imagery,  the  concentration  of  the 
passion,  all  go  to  produce  an  overwhelming  literary 
effect.  His  imagination  was  wonderfully  fertile  in  vari 
eties  of  illusion  and  mystification,  and  in  surprises  of 
fantasy,  but  there  is  a  fine  economy  in  his  use  of  mate- 


298  AMERICAN   LITERATURE  CHAP. 

rials.  Nothing  is  superfluous.  The  unsufferable  horror 
proceeds,  as  in  The  Tell- Tale  Heart,  from  a  single  cir 
cumstance.  His  problems  are  deceptively  simple.  His 
miracles  are  almost  scientific.  Yet  while  there  is  no 
vulgar  lavishness  of  blood  and  ghosts,  of  detective  ma 
chinery,  of  outcry  and  explanation,  the  interest  through 
out  is  held  at  highest  pitch,  until  the  strain  threatens 
exhaustion.  The  influence  of  Coleridge,  so  discernible 
in  Poe's  lyrics,  is  potent  upon  the  tales.  Those  bitter 
parables,  Scriptural  in  sublimity  of  language,  Shadow, 
where  the  seven  feasters  at  the  ebony  board  quaff  the 
red  Chian  wine  by  the  pallid  light  of  the  seven  iron 
lamps,  and  Silence,  the  fable  told  by  the  Demon,  who 
laughed  and  cursed  in  the  cavity  of  the  tomb,  are  attuned 
to  Coleridge's  prose-poem  Cain.  The  Keltic  note,  rich, 
aesthetic,  emotional,  prevails  almost  to  the  exclusion  of 
the  Anglo-Saxon.  There  is  no  moral  struggle,  and  little 
spiritual  sense,  but  there  are  grace  and  passion  and 
"  that  fitful  strain  of  melancholy  which,"  says  Poe,  "  will 
ever  be  found  inseparable  from  the  perfection  of  the 
beautiful."  Poe's  nautical  adventurer,  Pym,  declares 
that  when  listening  as  a  boy  to  stories  of  the  sea,  ac 
counts  of  suffering  and  despair  attracted  him  more  than 
the  brighter  side  of  the  picture.  "  My  visions  were  of 
shipwreck  and  famine ;  of  death  or  captivity  among 
barbarian  hordes,  of  a  lifetime  dragged  out  in  sorrow 
and  tears,  upon  some  gray  and  desolate  rock,  in  an 
ocean  unapproachable  and  unknown."  It  is  then  inap 
propriate  to  pity  Poe  too  much.  Though  his  life  was 


Reproduced  by  permission  of  Houghton,  Mifflin  &  Co. 
Publishers  of  Hawthorne's  Works. 


VI  NATIONAL  ERA:   PROSE  FICTION 


wild  and  sad,  wildness  and  sadness  were  to  him  fairer 
than  sobriety  and  joy,  and  he  transformed  his  sorrows 
and  his  frowardness  into  a  literature  which,  not  whole 
some,  not  heroic,  and  not  noble,  has  withal  a  unique 
magic. 

IV.  Idealism.  —  Poe  would  have  resented  the  sugges 
tion  that  he  was,  in  his  own  scoffing  phrase,  "  affected 
with  the  transcendentals,"  and  yet  his  genius  had  much 
in  common  with  that  of  the  supreme  idealist  in  Ameri 
can  romance,  NATHANIEL  HAWTHORNE.  An  English  critic 
has  suggested  that  "Poe  is  a  kind  of  Hawthorne  and 
delirium  tremens"  which  is  not  fair  to  either.  There 
was  something  obstinately  earthy  in  Poe's  imagination, 
something  strangely  guilty  in  his  consciousness,  but  he 
has  a  realm  of  music  denied  to  Hawthorne,  who,  on  his 
side,  is  not  to  be  defined  as  a  fraction  of  Poe.  They 
have  points  of  resemblance  as  artists  and  as  dreamers. 
Both  turned  instinctively  to  the  short  story,  and  in  those 
few  tales  where  Poe  depicts  the  workings  of  conscience, 
as  The  Man  of  the  Crowd  or  William  Wilson,  their 
styles  approximate.  Both  were  dwellers  in  the  dusk,  but 
the  shadow  that  haunted  Poe  crept  from  the  charnel- 
house,  while  Hawthorne's,  sprung  from  the  sinful  heart 
of  man,  showed  still  a  glint  of  heaven. 

In  view  of  the  character  of  his  work,  Hawthorne's 
heredity  is  of  peculiar  interest.  In  his  Grandfather's 
Chair,  a  group  of  Puritan  sketches  for  children  which  he 
likened  to  an  attempt  "  to  manufacture  delicate  play 
things  out  of  the  granite  rocks  "  of  New  England,  Haw- 


30O  AMERICAN   LITERATURE  CHAP. 

thorne  describes  the  coming  to  Salem,  in  1630,  of  the 
good  ship  "Arbella."  On  this  vessel,  which  bore  John 
Winthrop,  arrived  a  young  Englishman,  William  Ha- 
thorne,  who  developed  great  vigor  as  explorer,  legislator, 
fur-trader,  Indian-fighter,  and  Quaker-whipper.  In  the 
preface  to  the  Scarlet  Letter,  musing  upon  the  old,  witch- 
storied  Salem,  his  birthplace  and  his  home,  Hawthorne 
wrote  :  "  I  seem  to  have  a  stronger  claim  to  a  residence 
here  on  account  of  this  grave,  bearded,  sable-cloaked 
and  steeple-crowned  progenitor,  —  who  came  so  early, 
with  his  Bible  and  his  sword,  and  trode  the  unworn 
street  with  such  a  stately  port,  and  made  so  large  a 
figure,  as  a  man  of  war  and  peace.  .  .  .  His  son,  too, 
inherited  the  persecuting  spirit,  and  made  himself  so 
conspicuous  in  the  martyrdom  of  the  witches,  that  their 
blood  may  fairly  be  said  to  have  left  a  stain  upon  him. 
.  .  .  Planted  deep,  in  the  town's  earliest  infancy  and 
childhood,  by  these  two  earnest  and  energetic  men,  the 
race  has  ever  since  subsisted  here.  .  .  .  From  father  to 
son,  for  above  a  hundred  years,  they  followed  the  sea; 
a  gray-bearded  shipmaster,  in  each  generation,  retiring 
from  the  quarter-deck  to  the  homestead,  while  a  boy  of 
fourteen  took  the  hereditary  place  before  the  mast, 
confronting  the  salt  spray  and  the  gale,  which  had  blus 
tered  against  his  sire  and  grandsire."  Hawthorne's 
grandfather  commanded  a  privateer  in  the  War  of  Inde 
pendence  and  was  the  subject  of  one  of  our  Revolution 
ary  ballads,  Bold  Hathorne.  The  father  of  the  romancer 
was  a  captain  in  the  merchant  marine,  dying  at  a  foreign 


vi  NATIONAL  ERA:   PROSE  FICTION  301 

port  of  yellow  fever.  The  pensive  scion  of  this  hardy 
line  used  to  smile  in  fancying  how  paltry  his  pursuits 
must  seem  to  his  ghostly  ancestors,  especially  those  first 
two  "  stern  and  black-browed  Puritans."  " '  What  is  he  ?  ' 
murmurs  one  gray  shadow  of  my  forefathers  to  the  other. 
'  A  writer  of  story-books  !  What  kind  of  a  business  in 
life,  —  what  mode  of  glorifying  God,  or  being  service 
able  to  mankind  in  his  day  and  generation,  —  may  that 
be?  Why,  the  degenerate  fellow  might  as  well  have 
been  a  fiddler  !  '  Such  are  the  compliments  bandied 
between  my  great-grandsires  and  myself,  across  the 
gulf  of  time  !  And  yet,  let  them  scorn  me  as  they  will, 
strong  traits  of  their  nature  have  intertwined  themselves 
with  mine." 

Hawthorne's  boyhood  was  shadowed  by  his  mother's 
widow-grief.  He  was  a  child  of  four  summers  when 
the  word  came  of  his  young  father's  death,  and  it  was 
long  before  the  mother's  "  heart,  like  a  deep  lake,  had 
grown  calm  because  its  dead  had  sunk  down  so  far 
within."  Yet  despite  that  atmosphere  of  sorrow,  the  boy, 
with  his  two  affectionate  sisters  and  his  indulgent  uncles 
and  aunts,  seems  to  have  taken  life  much  in  boyhood's 
joyous  fashion.  He  tended  his  pets  and  rambled  and 
read.  Pilgrim's  Progress  was  a  favorite,  and  the  first 
book  he  bought  with  his  own  money  was  the  Faery 
Queens.  The  Newgate  Calendar  figures  on  his  list, 
with  Shakespeare,  Milton,  and  Rousseau.  Among  his 
teachers  was  Worcester,  the  lexicographer,  but  his 
Salem  schooling  was  delightfully  interrupted  by  seasons 


3O2  AMERICAN  LITERATURE  CHAP. 

of  running  wild  on  his  uncle's  estate  at  Raymond,  in 
Maine.  Here,  with  an  old  fowling-piece  over  his  shoul 
der,  he  would  plunge  into  the  trackless  forest,  or  "  skate 
until  midnight,  all  alone,  upon  Sebago  Lake,  with  the 
deep  shadow  of  the  icy  hills  on  either  hand."  At  seven 
teen  he  was  ready  for  Bowdoin  and  started  out  from 
Boston  in  the  old-fashioned  stage-coach,  a  slender, 
bright-eyed  lad,  with  clustering  dark  hair,  to  seek  that 
somewhat  primitive  well  of  knowledge.  He  had  Long 
fellow  for  a  classmate  and  Franklin  Pierce  for  a  friend, 
but  seems  to  have  given  his  confidence  most  freely  to 
Horatio  Bridge,  who  predicted  great  things  for  him.  "  I 
know  not  whence  your  faith  came,"  wrote  Hawthorne  to 
Bridge,  in  the  preface  to  The  Snow  Image,  "  but,  while 
we  were  lads  together  at  a  country  college,  —  gathering 
blueberries  in  study  hours,  under  those  tall  academic 
pines;  or  watching  the  great  logs,  as  they  tumbled 
along  the  current  of  the  Androscoggin ;  or  shooting 
pigeons  and  gray  squirrels  in  the  woods ;  or  bat- fowling 
in  the  summer  twilight;  or  catching  trouts  in  the 
shadowy  little  stream  which,  I  suppose,  is  still  wander 
ing  river-ward  through  the  forest,  —  though  you  and  I 
will  never  cast  a  line  in  it  again,  —  two  idle  lads,  in 
short  (as  we  need  not  fear  to  acknowledge  now) ,  doing 
a  hundred  things  that  the  Faculty  never  heard  of,  or 
else  it  had  been  the  worse  for  us,  —  still  it  was  your 
prognostic  of  your  friend's  destiny  that  he  was  to  be  a 
writer  of  fiction."  The  future  master  of  romance  mean 
while  ranked  low  in  mathematics  and  metaphysics,  and 


vi  NATIONAL  ERA:   PROSE  FICTION  303 

the  required  chapel  declamations  were  as  appalling  to 
him  as  an  after-dinner  speech  in  later  years.  Latin  was 
more  to  his  mind,  but  he  neglected  all  his  academic 
tasks,  even  themes,  and  sowed  a  few  Puritan  wild-oats 
at  a  secret  and  perilous  card-table.  He  went  through 
Commencement  day  without  embarrassment  of  college 
honors  and  was  not  heard  from  for  twelve  years  after. 
In  1837,  a  verY  slight  stir  in  the  literary  world  signalled 
the  appearance  of  Twice- Told  Tales. 

This  quiet  volume,  which  was  several  years  in  paying 
expenses,  does  not  seem  at  first  sight  an  abundant  har 
vest  for  the  opening  decade  of  manhood,  but  the  little 
book  was  wrought  of  glory-stuff.  Hawthorne  had  resided, 
for  almost  this  entire  time,  in  Salem.  In  an  upper-story 
room  in  his  father's  house,  where  his  mother  and  sisters 
led  lives  as  secluded  and  individual  as  his  own,  he  had 
brooded,  written  and  burned  and  written  again,  and 
bided  his  hour  of  fame.  "  If  ever  I  should  have  a  biog 
rapher,"  Hawthorne  wrote  in  his  note-book,  "  he  ought 
to  make  great  mention  of  this  chamber  in  my  memoirs, 
because  so  much  of  my  lonely  youth  was  wasted  here, 
and  here  my  mind  and  character  were  formed ;  and  here 
I  have  been  glad  and  hopeful,  and  here  I  have  been 
despondent.  And  here  I  sat  a  long,  long  time,  waiting 
patiently  for  the  world  to  know  me,  and  sometimes  won 
dering  why  it  did  not  know  me  sooner,  or  whether  it 
would  ever  know  me  at  all,  —  at  least,  till  I  were  in  my 
grave.  And  sometimes  it  seemed  as  if  I  were  already 
in  the  grave,  with  only  life  enough  to  be  chilled  and 


304  AMERICAN   LITERATURE  CHAP. 

benumbed.  But  oftener  I  was  happy."  And  happy  he 
must  have  been,  in  the  artist's  joy  of  labor,  even  although 
for  years  his  dream  mocked  at  his  deed.  When  he  had 
been  but  a  short  time  out  of  Bowdoin,  he  wrote  Fanshawe, 
a  college  novel,  which  he  published  at  his  own  expense 
and,  in  swift  distaste,  withdrew  from  circulation.  The 
simple  plot  centres  about  the  president's  ward,  one  of 
those  soft  and  shining  images  of  girlhood  which  haunt 
the  reveries  of  young  collegians.  All  the  undergraduates 
devote  the  chapel  hour  to  gazing  upon  this  starry  vision, 
but  two  become  her  manifest  lovers.  One  of  these,  the 
study-wasted  Fanshawe,  rescues  her  from  the  hands  of  a 
villain.  She  would  have  plighted  troth  to  her  deliverer, 
but  he  refuses  to  take  advantage  of  her  gratitude,  yields 
her  to  his  rival,  a  dashing  fellow  from  one  of  the  seaport 
towns,  and  returns  to  his  books,  which  bring  him  to  a 
speedy  grave.  The  story  has  impressive  passages  and 
is  pervaded  by  a  faint  Hawthornesque  flavor,  but  the 
conception  is  boyish  and  the  handling  not  yet  firm. 
The  atmosphere,  too,  is  ill-defined.  The  frank  actuali 
ties  of  student  life  are  hardly  reproduced,  while  the 
illusion  of  an  ideal  world  fails  to  possess  the  reader. 
Another  'prentice  volume,  which  those  who  had  peeped 
into  the  scribbled  leaves  thought  more  characteristic, 
Seven  Tales  of  my  Native  Land,  met  with  such  disheart 
ening  treatment  from  the  clan  of  publishers  that  the 
proud  young  author,  with  the  emotions  depicted  in 
The  Devil  in  Manuscript,  cast  the  whole  budget  into 
the  fire.  Our  mortal  dependence  upon  bread  and  butter 


vi  NATIONAL  ERA:   PROSE  FICTION  305 

led  Hawthorne  to  engage  for  a  brief  period  in  hack 
work  for  "Peter  Parley,"  and  at  rare  intervals  one  of 
his  tales  filled  some  modest  corner  of  a  magazine  or 
annual,  but,  in  the  main,  he  lived  in  his  haunted 
chamber,  from  twenty-one  to  thirty-three,  "the  most 
obscure  man  of  letters  in  America."  His  Bowdoin  mates 
were  well-advanced  on  the  trodden  ways  of  the  world, 
variously  successful  in  politics,  business,  and  the  profes 
sions ;  Longfellow  had  taken  a  Harvard  chair  j  but 
Hawthorne  had  nothing  to  show  for  his  hidden  life  save 
the  first  series  of  Twice-Told  Tales. 

This  publication,  although  warmly  hailed  by  Longfellow 
in  the  North  American  Review,  made  little  impression  on 
the  public.  It  was  five  years  before  Hawthorne  followed 
it  up  by  the  second  series,  and  three  years  more  before  he 
published  Mosses  from  an  old  Manse.  His  later  volumes 
of  short  stories,  though  designed  for  children,  are  as 
precious  to  adults  as  to  any  saucy  Primrose,  exact  little 
Sweet-Fern,  Periwinkle,  or  Squash-Blossom  of  them  all. 
The  Twice-Told  Tales  consist  of  pure  fantasies,  New 
England  legends,  and  realistic  studies.  These  last,  like 
much  of  the  work  preserved  in  Hawthorne's  note-books, 
testify  to  that  self-imposed  discipline  of  strict  observation 
and  accurate  expression,  which  constituted  his  technical 
training  for  the  art  of  literature.  In  Sunday  at  Home, 
for  instance,  we  catch  a  glimpse  of  the  sequestered  stu 
dent  peeping  out,  pen  in  hand,  around  his  window- curtain 
to  spy  upon  the  throng  of  church-goers,  and  in  Snow- 
Flakes  we  see  him,  through  the  frosted  pane,  scanning 


306  AMERICAN   LITERATURE  CHAP. 

the  brown  surface  of  the  street  and  the  slated  roofs  of  the 
houses,  that  he  may  transfer  to  his  waiting  page  the  pre 
cise  effect  upon  their  coloring  of  the  first  stealthy  touches 
of  the  storm.  Yet  the  slightest  of  such  sketches  is  saved 
from  mere  photography  by  a  delicate  suffusion  of  senti 
ment,  and  the  simplest  sentence  bears  traces  of  the 
chisel.  His  tales  of  primitive  New  England,  the  May 
pole  of  Merry  Mount,  the  Gray  Champion,  Legends  of  the 
Province  House,  show  what  a  fascination  the  Puritan  era 
had  for  his  imagination.  Those  sombre  virtues,  shed 
ding  about  them  that  supernatural  atmosphere  he  loved, 
appealed  to  his  patriotic  pride,  but  it  was  the  pictu- 
resqueness,  quite  as  much  as  the  heroism,  of  the  grim 
saints  who  sowed  corn  and  dug  graves  in  the  fringe  of 
the  "  sad  forest "  that  attracted  him.  The  contrast,  too, 
between  the  divineness  of  the  venture  and  the  prosaic 
fashion  in  which  it  was  pursued,  between  the  burning 
soul  of  faith  and  its  matter-of-fact,  dismal  body  of  Puri 
tanism,  rejoiced  him  with  a  pure  artistic  joy.  The  Pil 
grim  Fathers  would  hardly  recognize  themselves  in 
Hawthorne's  painting.  His  early  New  England  is,  in  a 
very  different  way,  as  much  his  own  creation  as  the 
Dutch  dynasty  of  New  Amsterdam  is  Irving's.  Both  the 
majesty  and  the  harshness  of  that  iron  age  he  enveloped 
in  a  rich,  soft,  dreamy  shadow.  About  the  plainest  and 
most  austere  of  religions  he  draped  a  dusky  ermine  of 
romance.  Gloom  and  mysticism  inform,  too,  his  tales 
of  fantasy.  Allegories  of  sin,  failure,  death,  the  irony 
of  human  fate,  and  the  immortality  of  human  folly 


vi  NATIONAL  ERA:   PROSE  FICTION  307 

may  be  read  in  the  Minister's  Black  Veil,  the  Great 
Carbtmcle,  the  Ambitious  Guest,  David  Swan,  Dr. 
Heidegger's  Experiment.  And  here,  again,  Hawthorne 
is  distilling  the  very  essence  of  his  heredity  and  envi 
ronment  into  art.  That  crushing  sense  of  human  respon 
sibility,  of  conscience,  sin,  and  doom,  those  tremendous 
Puritan  convictions  sealed  by  blood  and  tears,  through 
some  strange  witchcraft  served  this  son  of  Salem  as 
sheer  beauty.  The  measure  of  Hawthorne's  aesthetic 
appreciation  was  the  measure  of  his  remoteness. 

The  atmosphere  of  the  Twice-Told  Tales  is  somewhat 
thin  and  gray.  "They  have,"  said  the  author,  in  the 
preface  to  a  later  edition,  "  the  pale  tint  of  flowers  that 
blossomed  in  too  retired  a  shade,  —  the  coolness  of  a 
meditative  habit,  which  diffuses  itself  through  the  feeling 
and  observation  of  every  sketch.  Instead  of  passion 
there  is  sentiment ;  and,  even  in  what  purport  to  be 
pictures  of  actual  life,  we  have  allegory,  not  always  so 
warmly  dressed  in  its  habiliments  of  flesh  and  blood  as 
to  be  taken  into  the  reader's  mind  without  a  shiver."  In 
Mosses  from  an  Old  Manse  the  tragic  hue  is  deepened, 
although,  by  a  peculiarly  Hawthornesque  anomaly,  these 
tales  were  written  in  the  early  years  of  his  marriage,  when 
life  was  at  its  fairest  and  its  best.  The  Birth-Mark  mocks 
our  longing  for  perfection,  Young  Goodman  Brown 
sables  all  humanity  with  suspicion  of  secret  sin,  Rappa- 
cinVs  Daughter  develops  that  theme,  to  which  Hawthorne 
again  and  again  recurred,  of  a  malignant  poison  lurking 
in  most  luxuriant  beauty.  Yet  the  feast  here  set  before 


^?> 

'HE      ' 


308  AMERICAN   LITERATURE  CHAP. 

us  is  not  all  "  fricassee  of  scorpions "  and  "  apples  of 
Sodom."  Upon  the  revel  of  fancy  often  rests  a  tender 
light.  Sometimes  a  shadowy  smile  plays  about  the  lips 
of  the  narrator.  Hawthorne's  ease  and  force  of  style 
are  now  assured.  The  sustained  grotesquery  of  Feather- 
top,  the  sad  humor  of  The  Intelligence  Office,  that  close 
of  "  solemn  music  "  in  The  Procession  of  Life,  could 
hardly,  in  their  respective  veins,  be  bettered.  So  the 
tales  in  the  Snow  Image  collection,  though  some  of  these 
further  illustrate  Hawthorne's  craving  to  know  the  inner 
most  contents  of  that  burden  which  Christian  carried  on 
his  back,  though  they  deal  with  grief  and  death,  the 
slavery  of  guilt  and  the  torment  of  the  unpardonable  sin, 
have  a  frequent  strain  of  lightness  and  good  hope.  Very 
sweetly  does  The  Snow  Image  itself  set  forth  the  ruinous 
effects  of  common  sense ;  very  nobly  does  The  Great 
Stone  Face  exalt  the  world's  supreme  glory  of  sincere, 
benignant  character.  Near  the  outset  of  his  career 
Hawthorne  had  written  :  "  If  I  pride  myself  on  anything, 
it  is  because  I  have  a  smile  that  children  love,"  and  the 
Snow  Image  stories  in  large  part  belong  to  childhood, 
together  with  The  Wonder  Book  and  The  Tanglewood 
Tales.  In  these  fresh  and  dew-bright  volumes,  Haw 
thorne,  as  all  the  world  knows,  marvellously  succeeded 
in  coaxing  the  proud  beauty  of  Greek  mythology  to 
go  playing  through  the  glades  of  Tanglewood  in  the 
simple,  rustic  garb  of  a  Gothic  fairy-tale.  By  this  time 
the  romancer  had  a  home  of  his  own,  musical  with 
childish  voices.  The  world  owes  to  the  two  younger 


VI  NATIONAL  ERA:   PROSE  FICTION  309 

of  Hawthorne's  children,  Julian  Hawthorne,  journalist 
and  novelist,  and  Rose  Hawthorne  Lathrop,  poet  in 
words  and  deeds,  access  to  letters  and  memories  which 
reveal  a  well-nigh  perfect  marriage.  The  date  of  the 
wedding  is  1842,  but  the  betrothal  had  been  of  several 
years'  standing,  and  Hawthorne's  long  habit  of  solitude 
was  already  broken.  That  patient  existence  in  a  locked 
chamber,  with  the  tray  of  food  placed  outside  the  door, 
and  the  day's  long  brooding  and  writing  relieved  only  by 
an  evening  walk  upon  the  beach,  had  done  its  work.  He 
who  in  boyhood  had  avowed  that  he  did  "  not  want  to 
be  a  doctor  and  live  by  men's  diseases,  nor  a  minister 
to  live  by  their  sins,  nor  a  lawyer  and  live  by  their 
quarrels,"  had  become,  as  he  hoped,  an  author,  to  live 
by  men's  love  of  the  beautiful. 

But  the  few  carvings  which  Hawthorne  had  retained 
from  all  the  chippings  of  the  studio  meant  so  little  in 
the  way  of  money  that  he  gladly  accepted  an  appoint 
ment,  under  Bancroft  the  historian,  in  the  Boston  Cus 
tom  House.  It  was  Van  Buren's  administration  that 
was  thus  minded  to  honor  literary  Democrats  and,  as 
a  tribute  to  romance,  set  America's  most  sensitive  genius 
to  measuring  coal  from  dawn  to  sunset.  "  A  very  griev 
ous  thraldom "  he  came  to  find  it,  but,  at  the  end  of 
two  years,  he  had  saved  a  thousand  dollars,  which  he 
promptly  sunk  in  the  Brook  Farm  experiment.  Thus 
casting  in  his  lot  with  Ripley's  enthusiasts,  Hawthorne 
entered  upon  the  April  ploughing  and  planting  with  a 
humorous  zest,  hoping  soon  to  marry  and  bring  his 


3IO  AMERICAN   LITERATURE  CHAP. 

wife  to  share  that  "Age  of  Reason  in  a  patty-pan,"  as 
Curtis  called  it,  but  by  another  springtide  the  "witty 
potato  patches "  and  "  sparkling  cornfields "  had  lost 
their  charm.  He  was  thirty-eight  years  old,  with  little 
sign  of  worldly  wealth,  when  he  brought  the  happiest  of 
brides  to  Concord,  where  they  proceeded  to  add  another 
lustre  to  the  memories  of  the  Old  Manse.  "Nobody 
but  we  ever  knew  what  it  is  to  be  married,"  wrote  the 
new  Adam  to  the  new  Eve,  and  out  of  the  heart  of 
his  happiness  he  looked  back  upon  that  dreary  chamber 
in  Salem  with  more  than  content :  "  I  am  disposed  to 
thank  God  for  the  gloom  and  chill  of  my  early  life,  in 
the  hope  that  my  share  of  adversity  came  then,  when 
I  bore  it  alone."  But  except  with  his  wife  he  still 
kept  his  dark  mantle  of  reserve  folded  close  about 
him.  Curtis,  who  had  a  blithe  young  share  in  all  the 
phases  of  Transcendentalism,  gives  a  roguish  account 
of  a  representative  Concord  gathering,  in  Emerson's 
study,  where  the  philosophers  talked  Orphic  secrets 
and  ate  russet  apples,  while  "  Hawthorne,  a  statue  of 
night  and  silence,  sat  a  little  removed,  under  a  portrait 
of  Dante,  gazing  imperturbably  upon  the  group." 

Plain  fare  and  rickety  furniture  count  for  little  in  Eden, 
but  debts  weigh  upon  an  upright  soul,  and  when  another 
Democratic  administration  came  in,  Hawthorne  went 
resignedly  back  to  Salem  to  barter  "  the  delicate  harvest 
of  fancy  and  sensibility"  for  "a  pittance  of  the  public 
gold."  Three  years  he  served  in  the  Custom  House, 
his  imagination  all  the  while  "  a  tarnished  mirror,"  and 


VI  NATIONAL   ERA:    PROSE  FICTION  311 

when  the  political  pendulum  swung  the  Whigs  again 
into  office,  they  did  better  than  they  meant  in  turning 
Hawthorne  out.  The  discharged  Surveyor  of  Customs 
wrote  The  Scarlet  Letter,  which  called  forth,  from  the 
public  hitherto  so  indifferent  to  his  work,  an  instanta 
neous  acclaim  that  was  not  to  die  away.  At  forty-six, 
after  twenty-five  years  of  striving,  he  had  won  fame. 
In  this  brief  romance  all  his  past,  —  the  stern  heredity 
and  youthful  dream,  the  lonely  devotion  to  his  art,  and 
the  realization,  through  love,  of  the  vital  forces  of  life  — 
broke  into  flower,  and  a  wonderful,  blood-red  flower  it 
was.  On  turning  the  leaves  of  the  Note-Books,  one  is 
impressed  with  the  stories  that  Hawthorne  never  told, 
stories  of  a  lake  all  whose  drowned  should  rise  together, 
of  a  visionary  trying  to  kindle  his  household  hearth  with 
fireflies,  of  the  after  life  of  that  young  man  whom  Jesus, 
looking  on,  loved.  Woods  and  streets,  books  and  cloud- 
land,  gave  him  magical  hints,  of  which  by  far  the  most, 
perhaps  the  best,  lie  undeveloped.  "  Life  now  swells 
and  heaves  beneath  me  like  a  brim-full  ocean,"  once 
he  wrote,  "and  the  endeavor  to  comprise  any  portion 
of  it  in  words  is  like  trying  to  dip  up  the  ocean  in  a 
goblet."  But  the  symbol  of  the  scarlet  letter,  one  of 
those  cruel  ingenuities  of  Puritan  punishment,  already 
touched  upon  in  Endicott  and  the  Red  Cross,  would  not 
let  him  go.  His  imagination  naturally  crystallized  about 
some  emblem,  —  a  mirror,  a  serpent,  a  butterfly,  a  ruddy 
footprint,  —  but  here,  as  seldom  before,  the  symbolism 
burned  with  a  passion  more  engrossing  than  itself.  Yet 


312  AMERICAN   LITERATURE  CHAP. 

Hawthorne  takes  up  his  tragedy  at  the  point  where 
many  writers  would  have  dropped  it.  "  The  mere 
facts  of  guilt,"  he  elsewhere  wrote,  "  are  of  little  value 
except  to  the  gossip  and  the  tipstaff;  but  how  the 
wounded  and  the  wounding  soul  bear  themselves  after 
the  crime,  that  is  one  of  the  needful  lessons  of  life." 
That  most  friendly  of  publishers,  James  T.  Fields, 
whose  name  adorns  the  illustrious  roll  of  Atlantic  editors, 
clamored  for  a  second  manuscript  and  obtained  The 
House  of  the  Seven  Gables.  This  sweeter  and  less 
powerful  romance,  written  in  the  red  cottage  at  Lenox 
with  the  buoyancy  born  of  unaccustomed  praise,  eased 
the  author's  mind  of  the  old  witch-curse  pronounced 
upon  his  persecuting  ancestor,  Justice  Hathorne.  In 
the  least  mystical  and  hence  the  least  characteristic 
and  precious  of  his  long  stories,  The  Blithedale  Ro 
mance,  written  at  West  Newton,  he  drew  upon  his  memo 
ries  of  Brook  Farm.  Although  Poe,  who  had  been 
among  the  first  to  recognize  Hawthorne's  values,  feared 
he  was  too  much  under  the  influence  of  the  New  Eng 
land  enthusiasts  and  irreverently  counselled  him  to 
"mend  his  pen,  get  a  bottle  of  visible  ink,  come  out 
from  the  Old  Manse,  cut  Mr.  Alcott,"  and  "hang  (if 
possible)  the  editor  of  The  Dial,"  Hawthorne  had  never 
been,  in  fact,  the  thrall  of  "Giant  Transcendentalism." 
His  tale  Earth's  Holocaust  shows  what  an  alien  his 
dreamy,  dusk-winged  genius  was  among  the  cheerful 
philosophies  and  bustling  agitations  of  his  day.  He 
was  capable  of  dubbing  Alcott  the  "  airy  Sage  of  Apple- 


VI  NATIONAL  ERA:   PROSE  FICTION  313 

Slump,"  and  his  Blithedale  Romance  gave  offence  to 
the  Brook  Farmers,  especially  to  the  friends  of  Margaret 
Fuller. 

The  election  to  the  Presidency  of  Hawthorne's  college 
comrade,  Franklin  Pierce,  for  whom  he  had  been  persuaded 
to  write  a  campaign  biography,  brought  upon  the  sensi 
tive  romancer,  once  again,  the  blight  of  public  office. 
In  the  "stifled  chamber"  of  the  American  consulate  at 
Liverpool  he  "  spent  wearily  a  considerable  portion  of 
more  than  four  good  years."  He  supported  his  family 
and  paid  his  debts,  but  no  adequate  literary  result  came 
from  this  English  residence.  Our  Old  Home,  made  up 
from  his  journals,  was,  as  he  said,  "not  a  good  or  a 
weighty  book,"  —  in  comparison,  let  it  be  added,  with 
what  he  might  have  done,  as  evinced  by  the  fruit  of  a 
subsequent  year  in  Italy,  The  Marble  Faun.  Yet  the 
French  and  Italian  Note-Books  reveal,  no  less  than  the 
English,  a  frequent  mood  of  repletion  and  distaste.  It 
was  the  necessity  of  his  genius,  as  of  Emerson's,  to  eat 
and  not  be  eaten,  —  to  assimilate  what  he  saw,  to  reduce 
objects  to  impressions  and  transmute  life  into  literature ; 
but  upon  him,  as  upon  Emerson,  the  foreign  demand 
was  too  heterogeneous,  multitudinous,  incessant.  He 
found  the  British  Museum  depressing,  and  was  very  glad 
he  had  "  seen  the  pope,  because  now  he  may  be  crossed 
out  of  the  list  of  sights  to  be  seen."  As  with  Emerson, 
too,  his  New  England  love  of  cleanliness  and  freshness 
was  continually  affronted.  This  "Artist  of  the  Beau 
tiful,"  who  in  the  Salem  days  had  been  so  cheered  by  a 


314  AMERICAN   LITERATURE  CHAP, 

"  wandering  flock  of  snowbirds  "  or  the  "  gush  of  violets 
along  a  woodpath,"  hated  the  "dirt  and  squalor"  of  Ital 
ian  cities  and  sickened  before  the  chapel  frescoes,  "  poor, 
fouled  relics,  looking  as  if  the  Devil  had  been  rubbing 
and  scrubbing  them  for  centuries  in  spite  against  the 
saints."  Yet  although  to  his  overtaxed  spirit  the  master 
pieces  of  mediaeval  painting  and  sculpture  were  often 
"heavily  burdensome,"  the  Faun  of  Praxiteles  at  once 
entranced  his  fancy.  The  story,  as  he  at  first  conceived 
it,  was  to  have  "all  sorts  of  fun  and  pathos  in  it,"  but 
when  he  came  to  "close  grips  "  with  his  romance,  it  took 
on,  amid  supreme  beauty  of  detail,  the  true  Hawthorn- 
esque  semblance  of  tragic  mystery.  In  The  Marble  Faun 
his  pure  and  tranquil  grace  of  style  is  at  its  best.  The 
economy  of  incident  is  not  so  strict  as  in  the  statuesque 
simplicity  of  the  Scarlet  Letter  groupings,  nor  is  the 
dramatic  intensity  so  keen;  but  there  is  Hawthorne's 
own  rich,  subdued,  autumnal  coloring,  with  the  first 
soft  shadows  deepening  into  sable.  Emerson,  whom 
Hawthorne's  Concord  journal  once  noted  as  coming  to 
call  "  with  a  sunbeam  in  his  face,"  unwittingly  returned 
the  compliment  by  saying  that  Hawthorne  "rides  well 
his  horse  of  the  night."  Gloom  has  its  own  enchant 
ment,  and  so  has  mystery,  but  the  issues  of  this  romance 
were  left  in  an  uncertainty  that  its  readers  found  hard 
to  bear.  Hawthorne  would  not  help  them.  He  was 
fertile  in  misleading  suggestions  and  tricksy  hypotheses, 
but  perhaps  he  hardly  knew  the  actual  fate  of  Miriam 
and  Donatello.  Such  a  "cloudy  veil"  as  he  found 


VI  NATIONAL  ERA:   PROSE  FICTION  315 

stretched  over  "the  abyss"  of  his  own  nature  may  have 
been  interposed  between  himself  and  the  innermost 
secrets  of  his  characters.  Supernatural  forces,  too, 
entered  in,  as  in  life,  amid  the  personages  of  his  tales 
and  played  their  inscrutable  parts  beside  them.  Among 
the  baffling  questions  is  one  suggested  by  Hawthorne's 
younger  daughter,  who,  with  her  husband,  George  Par 
sons  Lathrop,  poet  and  novelist,  has  embraced  the 
Roman  faith.  Mrs.  Lathrop  claims  that  The  Marble 
Faun,  if  closely  studied,  shows  in  the  treatment  of  sin 
and  atonement  a  significant  divergence  from  the  Puritan 
romances. 

Just  before  the  Civil  War  Hawthorne  came  home,  — 
a  woeful  time  for  any  patriot,  but  most  for  one  of  divided 
sympathies.  In  that  strong  sketch  he  was  destined 
never  to  fill  out,  Septimius  Felton,  he  dwells  upon  the 
wretched  sense  of  being  "ajar  with  the  human  race" 
which  besets  "  a  man  of  brooding  thought "  in  any  vio 
lent  crisis.  He  took  up  his  abode  at  The  Wayside,  in 
Concord,  and  while  insidious  disease  was  stealing  upon 
his  system,  strove  to  fashion  this  new  "  Romance  of 
Immortality."  The  unfinished  manuscript  was  laid  upon 
his  coffin. 

V.  Realism.  —  Such  sweeping  terms  as  realism,  ideal 
ism,  romanticism,  cannot  be  used  with  mathematical  pre 
cision.,.  In  general,  our  four  leaders  in  fiction,  Cooper, 
Irving,  Poe,  and  Hawthorne,  writing  in  the  spirit  of 
beauty  and  for  the  end  of  joy,  emphasize  those  elements 
of  life  either  strange  in  themselves  or  strange  to  their 


3l6  AMERICAN   LITERATURE  CHAP. 

audiences,  and  are  so  far  romanticists.  In  general,  too, 
they  are  all  idealists,  although  the  high,  pure  essence  of 
spirituality  is  incarnate  in  Hawthorne  alone.  Through  the 
green  solitudes  of  Cooper's  forests  move  Indians  nobler 
than  ordinary  experience  discloses,  and  the  pirates  who 
sail  his  bounding  seas  have  gifts  and  graces  that  the 
dull  world  never  guessed.  In  Irving's  Dutch  villages, 
nestling  along  the  Hudson,  gossip  figures  quainter  than 
common  eye  can  find,  and  the  fretted  arches  of  the 
Alhambra  sigh  with  marvellous  legends.  Poe's  imagi 
nations,  clinging  to  nerve  and  brain,  flash  search-lights 
into  the  pit  of  death,  while  Hawthorne  opens,  beneath 
the  daily  aspect  of  life,  that  more  awful  and  mysterious 
abyss  of  moral  consciousness. 

It  is  just  this  daily  aspect  of  life  which  is  prized  by 
the  new  realism.  The  minute  reproduction  of  the 
commonplace  is  the  latest  pride  of  fiction.  "  As  in 
literature,"  says  Howells,  "  the  true  artist  will  shun  the 
use  even  of  real  events  if  they  are  of  an  improbable 
character,  so  the  sincere  observer  of  man  will  not  desire 
to  look  upon  his  heroic  or  occasional  phases,  but  will 
seek  him  in  his  habitual  moods  of  vacancy  and  tiresome 
ness."  This  doctrine,  at  the  fore  in  Russia  and  France 
and  sufficiently  active  in  England,  has  dominated  Ameri 
can  fiction  since  the  Civil  War.  Truthful  reports  of  the 
face  of  nature  and  society  were  nothing  new.  Cooper 
pictured  the  landscapes  he  had  known  from  childhood, 
Irving  was  a  guest  in  Bracebridge  Hall,  Poe  had  a  scien 
tific  care  for  detail,  and  Hawthorne  practised  himself 


VI  NATIONAL   ERA:    PROSE  FICTION  317 

from  youth  till  death  in  closeness  of  observation  and 
correctness  of  verbal  rendering.  But  not  one  of  them 
reproduced  for  the  sake  of  reproduction.  Cooper 
wanted  a  setting  for  his  story,  and  Irving  a  scene  for 
his  sentiment,  while  Poe  and  Hawthorne  observed  a 
scrupulous  veracity  in  trifles  to  pave  the  way  for  prodi 
gies.  The  new  realism,  on  the  contrary,  is  almost  a 
branch  of  sociological  science.  It  seeks,  above  all  else, 
to  get  a  photograph  of  things  as  they  look,  —  on  the 
theory,  which  is  open  to  question,  that  things  look  as 
they  are. 

The  realism  of  personal  adventure,  which  relates  un 
usual  experiences  with  the  manner,  if  not  the  matter,  of 
fiction,  is  exemplified  in  the  thrilling  chapters  of  Ken- 
nan's  Siberian  Travels,  or  in  that  boy-beloved  volume, 
the  younger  Dana's  Two  Years  before  the  Mast,  or  even 
in  Kane's  Arctic  Explorations,  of  which  Thoreau  charac 
teristically  remarked  that  "  most  of  the  phenomena  noted 
might  be  observed  in  Concord."  But  even  this  form  of 
writing  tends  to  become  less  and  less  spontaneous  and 
more  and  more  a  matter  of  business.  Where  to-day 
enterprising  journalism  sends  Richard  Harding  Davis 
to  Cuba  to  "write  up"  the  insurrection,  and  Julian 
Hawthorne  to  India  to  "  report "  the  famine,  half  a 
century  since  we  had  Bayard  Taylor's  Views  Afoot  and 
Parkman's  Oregon  Trail.  An  interesting  book  in  this 
category  is  Clemens's  Life  on  the  Mississippi,  which  tells 
incidentally  whence  he  derived  his  pen-name  of  "  Mark 
Twain,"  and  helps  to  a  better  understanding  of  so  ver- 


318  AMERICAN   LITERATURE  CHAP. 

satile  and  unequal  an  author.  As  a  specimen  of  the  story 
built  on  a  substructure  of  travel,  Theodore  Winthrop's 
John  Brent,  with  a  black  horse  for  hero  and  a  wild  gallop 
over  the  prairie  for  chief  adventure,  is  well  worth  read 
ing.  This  gallant  scion  of  the  old  Winthrop  house,  who, 
thirty  years  before  the  firing  on  Sumter,  was  a  toddling 
"  golden-haired  boy,  with  a  picture-book  under  each 
arm,"  and  who,  volunteering  at  the  first  call  for  troops, 
was  one  of  the  first  to  fall,  left  several  stories  behind 
him,  all  with  something  of  youthful  crudity  upon  them, 
and  something  more  of  lofty  promise.  They  vary  in 
tone  from  the  out-of-door  breeziness  vtjohn  Brent,  "  full 
of  gold  air,"  to  the  Hawthornesque  glooms  of  that  power 
ful  study  in  evil,  Cecil  Dreeme.  But  our  modern  realism 
lends  itself  especially  to  close  local  portraitures,  as  in  the 
New  England  stories  most  delicately  done  by  SARAH  O. 
JEWETT,  most  vigorously  by  MARY  E.  WILKINS.  It  is  of 
interest  to  trace  this  New  England  line  from  HARRIET 
BEECHER  STOWE,  with  her  Old-Town  Folks,  The  Minis 
ter's  Wooing,  and  other  well-remembered  novels,  to  the 
short,  dialect  stories  of  Alice  Brown,  still  at  the  outset 
of  her  career,  and  note  the  narrowing  and  intensifying 
of  the  realistic  method.  The  down-East  novels  of  Mrs. 
Elizabeth  Stoddard,  poet  wife  of  poet  husband,  strike, 
for  all  their  abrupt  energy  of  passion,  the  unmistakable 
New  England  seaport  note.  Even  Mrs.  Harriet  Prescott 
Spofford,  naturally  a  dweller  "in  Titian's  garden,"  she 
who  flushed  her  Amber  Gods  with  such  ardent  color, 
tries  to  fall  in  with  the  prevailing  school.  ELIZABETH 


VI  NATIONAL  ERA:   PROSE  FICTION  319 

STUART  PHELPS  WARD,  while  she  idealizes  her  characters, 
paints  Fisherman  Jack  and  the  "  Christman  "  against  the 
Gloucester  background  that  she  knows  so  well.  Edward 
Everett  Hale's  famous  "Double"  was  not  more  like  him 
self  than  the  cheery,  busy,  Boston  details  of  many  of  his 
stories  are  like  the  life  that  beats  at  his  study  doors. 
But  he  is  only  a  spy  in  the  realist  camp  and  may  at 
any  moment  betray  us  to  a  brick  moon  or  a  conversa 
tional  umbrella. 

"  The  fierce  confederate  storm 
Of  sorrow  barricadoed  evermore 
Within  the  walls  of  cities  " 

engages  many  pens.  Chicago  has  found  an  observant 
painter  in  Henry  Fuller,  who,  like  Boyesen,  was  swept 
by  the  tide  of  realism  from  his  morning  course.  A  San 
Francisco  journalist,  Chester  Bailey  Fernald,  explores 
the  queer  corners  of  Chinatown.  "The  enormous  hive 
called  Manhattan  Island  "  gives  scope  for  the  varying 
talents  of  Howells,  James,  Crawford,  Warner,  Brander 
Matthews,  Edgar  Fawcett,  William  Henry  Bishop.  H.  C. 
Bunner,  Thomas  A.  Janvier,  and  even  Hopkinson  Smith, 
who  has  turned  from  the  picturesque  old  Colonel  Carter 
of  Cartersville  to  that  dauntless  stevedore  of  Staten 
Island,  Tom  Grogan.  The  graphic  contrasts  of  New  York 
life  recall  a  cry  from  the  luxurious  days  of  England  under 
the  Stuarts  :  "  Alas,  how  bitterly  the  spirit  of  poverty 
spouts  itself  against  my  weal  and  felicity  !  but  I  feel  it 
not.  I  cherish  and  make  much  of  myself,  flow  forth  in 
ease  and  delicacy,  while  that  murmurs  and  starves."  At 


32O  AMERICAN   LITERATURE  CHAP. 

least  our  modern  fiction  does  not  blink  the  facts.  Julian 
Ralph  searches  out  the  secrets  of  the  Big  Barracks,  and 
Richard  Harding  Davis,  whose  mother,  Rebecca  Hard 
ing  Davis,  had  turned  by  native  impulse  to  the  "  Story  of 
To-day,"  reports  Gallagher  as  well  as  Van  Bibber.  The 
strike  finds  its  way  into  literature,  together  with  "that 
bitter  blossom  of  civilization,"  the  tramp.  Aldrich's 
Stillwater  Tragedy,  "  Octave  Thanet's  "  Stories  of  a  West 
ern  Town,  Mrs.  Mary  Hallock  Foote's  Cceur  d'Alene  are 
examples  of  the  fiction  that  concerns  itself  with  labor 
questions.  Philanthropies  are  canvassed  no  less  than 
felonies.  In  that  keen  and  earnest  little  volume,  Mar 
garet  Sherwood's  An  Experiment  in  Altruism,  even  the 
College  Settlement  passes  under  survey. 

There  are  still  a  few  writers  who  look  wistfully  toward 
romance.  Thomas  Nelson  Page  throws  "  a  light  of  other 
days  "  over  his  blithe  and  tender  tales  of  the  Old  Domin 
ion  ;  James  Lane  Allen,  interpreter  of  the  Blue  Grass 
region,  shapes  his  poetic  temper  but  slowly  to  the  current 
mode ;  and  the  Creoles  would  have  us  believe  that 
George  Washington  Cable  portrays  them  more  from  imag 
ination  than  experience.  Historical  fiction  tempts  the 
author  aside  from  the  burden  and  heat  of  his  own  day. 
Colonial  and  Revolutionary  stories  are  much  in  vogue. 
Mrs.  Mary  Hartwell  Catherwood  and  Gilbert  Parker  go 
gleaning  after  Parkman.  It  is  on  European  ground  that 
our  romancers  often  score  their  triumphs,  as  the  Baroness 
Blanche  Willis  Howard  Teufel  in  Guenn,  and  Arthur  Sher- 
burne  Hardy  in  Passe  Rose.  This  feat  has  been  multi- 


. 


Reproduced  by  permission  of  Messrs. 
Elliott  &  Fry,  Photographers. 


vi  NATIONAL  ERA:   PROSE  FICTION  32! 

plied  by  one  of  America's  most  popular  novelists,  FRANCIS 
MARION  CRAWFORD,  son  of  Crawford  the  sculptor.  "  No 
year  without  its  book"  would  seem  to  be  his  literary 
motto,  save  that  his  annual  output  more  frequently 
doubles  that  number,  but  these  volumes  which  defile  in 
such  swift  and  varied  procession  before  the  public, 
romances  of  India,  Arabia,  Constantinople,  Italy,  and 
stories  of  modern  New  York,  are  alike  in  the  feature  of 
lively  interest.  Crawford  frankly  undertakes  to  be  enter 
taining.  To  him  the  "  purpose  novel  "  is  "  an  odious 
thing."  He  claims  that  the  novel  should  be  an  "  intel 
lectual  artistic  luxury  "  rather  than  an  "  intellectual  moral 
lesson," — in  short,  "  a  pocket-theatre."  He  cannot  always 
refrain  from  doing  a  little  preaching  on  his  own  account, 
especially  in  the  books  that  deal  with  American  politics 
and  manners,  but  when  he  writes  of  Italy,  the  glowing  land 
of  his  nativity,  didacticism  melts  away  and  leaves  pure 
artist.  His  greatest  achievement  yet  is  the  strong  series 
of  Saracinesca,  Sanf  Ilario,  Don  Orsino,  and  Corleone. 
Another  American  author  of  foreign  residence  is 
HENRY  JAMES,  who  bears  the  name  of  a  father  well 
reputed  for  works  on  philosophy  and  religion,  and  has 
a  brother  in  Harvard's  distinguished  group  of  philo 
sophical  professors.  Our  "  international  novelist "  is 
little  to  the  general  taste.  The  simple,  kindly  stories 
of  Rev.  E.  P.  Roe  and  the  Biblical  romances  of  Gen. 
Lew  Wallace  count  many  readers  to  his  one.  It  has 
been  the  fashion  to  decry  James  for  lack  of  patriotism ; 
but  while  he  has  no  enthusiasm  for  a  mankind  in  its 


322  AMERICAN   LITERATURE  CHAP. 

shirtsleeves,"  he  can  hardly  be  said  to  bear  more  heavily 
on  one  nationality  than  another.  Human  nature  itself  is 
a  little  abashed  before  him.  His  characters  are  usually 
at  the  disadvantage  of  being  away  from  their  natural 
environment,  —  if  Americans,  abroad ;  if  Europeans, 
in  Massachusetts ;  if  Londoners,  in  Paris ;  if  Italians,  in 
London.  Mr.  Dosson,  lounging  helplessly  in  the  court 
of  the  Hotel  de  1'Univers,  as  if  dangled  from  the  end 
of  "  an  invisible  string,"  is  a  very  different  man  from 
Mr.  Dosson  in  his  counting-room  at  home.  The  grand 
indictment  which  James  brings  against  his  countrymen 
is  vulgarity,  —  a  vulgarity  not  ingrain,  but  born  of  worldly 
ignorance  and  of  that  cheerful  self-confidence  imparted 
by  a  good  conscience.  In  contrast  to  the  American 
individualism,  the  French  sense  of  family  is  emphasized, 
and  in  contrast  to  social  ostentation  in  America,  the 
quiet  dignity  of  English  intercourse.  One  does  not  often 
care  greatly  for  the  mere  story  James  has  to  tell,  and 
that  is  fortunate,  since  his  stories  have  a  way  of  ceasing 
in  mid  career^  but  now  and  then,  as  in  The  Princess  Cas- 
samassima,  the  situation  strongly  appeals.  The  heaving 
unrest  and  anarchistic  conspiracies  of  all  Europe  give 
substance  to  this  tragedy  of  the  little  London  book 
binder,  son  at  once  of  the  oppressed  and  the  oppressor. 
The  interest  of  James's  books  mainly  lies,  however,  in 
the  microscopic  observation  of  men  and  manners,  in 
the  labyrinthine  discussion  of  problems  of  conduct, 
approached  from  the  side  of  taste  rather  than  of 
conscience,  and  in  the  beauty  of  detail)  the  ele- 


VI  NATIONAL  ERA:   PROSE  FICTION  325 

nation,  but  Howells  has  held  for  twenty  years  firmly  to 
his  theory,  spending  upon  his  Bartley  Hubbards  and 
Silas  Laphams,  his  Annie  Kilburns  and  Lemuel  Barkers, 
Lthe  utmost  pains  of  a  well-mastered  art.  The  strong 
ninfluence  of  Tolstoi,  however,  seems  to  have  opened 
^Howells's  eyes  of  late  to  more  varied  and  more  tragic 
v  types  of  modern  man.  His  characteristic  kindliness  is 
\  deeply  enlisted  for  the  sufferers  in  life's  battle,  and  a 
entrain  of  perplexed  sadness  pervades  his  recent  work. 
slirhose  who,  seeing  enough  in  their  daily  routine  of  stupid 
extnd  silly  people,  like  themselves,  have  turned  in  weari- 
frciess  away  from  Howells's  familiar  copies,  will  find  in  The 
^ajazard  of  New  Fortunes  that  a  change  is  passing  upon 
for  s  canvas.  Happily,  however,  the  quiet  humor,  which 
tioiakes  the  connubial  jarrings  of  the  Marches  so  agreeable, 
not  forsake  him.  It  would  seem,  in  truth,  as  if 
^>  and  even  women,  were  more  mysterious  and  more 
has  ;tic  beings  than  Howells  has  hitherto  admitted.  Some- 
"  beig  heavenly  shines  through  the  humdrum.  It  is  per- 
trast£  well  to  have  the  buttons  counted, 

en&Yet  may  the  soul  pitch  her  adventure  high, 
momtWith  beauty  and  with  love  impassioned,  though  we  die." 

ate. 

but  u 

passa^ 

solemi 

suffers 

middle 

curtain 


322  AMERICAN  LITERATURE  CHAP. 

shirtsleeves,"  he  can  hardly  be  said  to  bear  more  heavily 
on  one  nationality  than  another.  Human  nature  itself  is 
a  little  abashed  before  him.  His  characters  are  usually 
at  the  disadvantage  of  being  away  from  their  natural* 
environment,  —  if  Americans,  abroad ;  if  Europeans," 
in  Massachusetts ;  if  Londoners,  in  Paris ;  if  Italians,  in- 
London.  Mr.  Dosson,  lounging  helplessly  in  the  court* 
of  the  Hotel  de  1'Univers,  as  if  dangled  from  the  end* 
of  "  an  invisible  string,"  is  a  very  different  man  frorr- 
Mr.  Dosson  in  his  counting-room  at  home.  The  graml- 
indictment  which  James  brings  against  his  countryme^3 
is  vulgarity,  —  a  vulgarity  not  ingrain,  but  born  of  world)et 
ignorance  and  of  that  cheerful  self-confidence  impart<ng 
by  a  good  conscience.  In  contrast  to  the  Americ  as 
individualism,  the  French  sense  of  family  is  emphasize161" 
and  in  contrast  to  social  ostentation  in  America,  lred 
quiet  dignity  of  English  intercourse.  One  does  not  oi118  a 
care  greatly  for  the  mere  story  James  has  to  tell,  Y  °f 
that  is  fortunate,  since  his  stories  have  a  way  of  cea?rom 
in  mid  career,  but  now  and  then,  as  in  The  Princess  <con- 
samassima,  the  situation  strongly  appeals.  The  heait>mg 
unrest  and  anarchistic  conspiracies  of  all  Europe  Pe "  j 
substance  to  this  tragedy  of  the  little  London  1  been 
binder,  son  at  once  of  the  oppressed  and  the  oppre?rass~ 
The  interest  of  James's  books  mainly  lies,  howevf/oted, 
the  microscopic  observation  of  men  and  mannest  die 
the  labyrinthine  discussion  of  problems  of  corloPPer 
approached  from  the  side  of  taste  rather  tl-ar  tnat 
conscience,  and  in  the  beauty  of  detail)  the  irnagi- 


VI  NATIONAL  ERA:   PROSE  FICTION  325 

nation,  but  Howells  has  held  for  twenty  years  firmly  to 
his  theory,  spending  upon  his  Bartley  Hubbards  and 
Silas  Laphams,  his  Annie  Kilburns  and  Lemuel  Barkers, 
the  utmost  pains  of  a  well-mastered  art.  The  strong 
influence  of  Tolstoi,  however,  seems  to  have  opened 
Howells's  eyes  of  late  to  more  varied  and  more  tragic 
types  of  modern  man.  His  characteristic  kindliness  is 
deeply  enlisted  for  the  sufferers  in  life's  battle,  and  a 
strain  of  perplexed  sadness  pervades  his  recent  work. 
Those  who,  seeing  enough  in  their  daily  routine  of  stupid 
and  silly  people,  like  themselves,  have  turned  in  weari 
ness  away  from  Howells's  familiar  copies,  will  find  in  The 
Hazard  of  New  Fortunes  that  a  change  is  passing  upon 
his  canvas.  Happily,  however,  the  quiet  humor,  which 
makes  the  connubial  jarrings  of  the  Marches  so  agreeable, 
does  not  forsake  him.  It  would  seem,  in  truth,  as  if 
men,  and  even  women,  were  more  mysterious  and  more 
poetic  beings  than  Howells  has  hitherto  admitted.  Some 
thing  heavenly  shines  through  the  humdrum.  It  is  per 
haps  well  to  have  the  buttons  counted, 

"  Yet  may  the  soul  pitch  her  adventure  high, 
With  beauty  and  with  love  impassioned,  though  we  die." 


INDEX   OF  AUTHORS 


BORN     DIED 

1803.  .1879.  .Abbott,  Jacob  (Rollo  Books),  279. 

1805.  .  1877.  .Abbott,  Rev.  John  S.  C,  143. 

1842. .          .  .Adams,  Charles  Follen,  179. 

1755.  .1832.  .Adams,  Hannah,  222. 

1735. .  1826.  .Adams,  President  John,  69,  70,  73,  75,  76,  87,  95,  254. 

1767.  .1848.  .Adams,  President  John  Quincy,  95,  97,  252. 

1722.  .1803.  .Adams,  Samuel,  67,  70. 

1822. .  1897.  .Adams,  William  T.,  "  Oliver  Optic,"  279. 

1799.  .1888.  .Alcott,  Amos  Bronson,  216,  218,  223,  224-226,  262, 

312,  313. 

1832.  .1888.  .Alcott,  Louisa  May,  115,  226,  289. 
1836. .          .  .  Aldrich,  Thomas  Bailey,  114,  128,  130,  173-176,  197, 

285,  320. 
1849. .          .  .Allen,  James  Lane,  135,  320. 

. .  Allen,  Mrs.  Josiah.     See  Holley,  Marietta. 
1779.  .1843.  -Allston,  Washington,  102,  117,  154,  276. 
1638. .     ?    .  .Alsop,  George,  17. 
1758.  .1808.  .Ames,  Fisher,  129. 
1780. .  1851 . .  Audubon,  John  James,  259. 
1800. .  1891 .  .Bancroft,  George,  240,  241-242,  246,  249,  309. 
1832. .          .  .Bancroft,  Hubert  Howe,  241. 
1754.  .1812.  .Barlow,  Joel,  75-76,  78. 
1813.  .1887.  .Beecher,  Rev.  Henry  Ward,  227,  257. 
1775.  .1863.  .Beecher,  Rev.  Lyman,  209. 
1744. .  1798.  .Belknap,  Rev.  Jeremy,  239. 
1850. .          .  .Bellamy,  Edward,  233. 
1782. .  1858.  .Benton,  Thomas  Hart,  252. 
1670?.  1 735 P.Beverly,  Robert,  16-17,239. 

. .  Billings,  Josh.     See  Shaw,  Henry  W. 


2  AMERICAN   LITERATURE 

BORN      DIED 

1803.  .1854.  .Bird,  Robert  Montgomery,  275. 

1847.  •          •  -Bishop,  William  Henry,  319. 
1656.  .1743.  .Blair,  Rev.  James,  17. 
1752.  .1783.  .Bleecker,  Mrs.  Ann  Eliza,  80. 

1823.  .1890.  .Boker,  George  Henry,  114,  193-195,  201. 
1856. .  1894.  .Bolles,  Frank,  260. 

1848.  .1895.  -Boyesen,  Professor  Hjalmar  Hjorth,  319. 

1590. .  1657.  .Bradford,  Governor  William,  4,  17-18,  21-22,  27,  30, 

3i,  239. 

1612. .  1672.  .Bradstreet,  Mrs.  Anne  Dudley,  31-34,  40,  87,  154. 
1718.  .1747.  .Brainerd,  David,  93-94. 
1806.  .1893.  -Bridge,  Horatio,  302. 
1795?.  1845.  -Brooks,  Mrs.  Maria  Gowen,  105. 
1835. .  l893-  -Brooks,  Rt.  Rev.  Phillips,  258. 
1857. .          .  .Brown,  Alice,  318. 

1771.  .1810.  .Brown,  Charles  Brockden,  88-90,  98,  130,  266/' 
1834. .  1867.  .Browne,  Charles  Farrar,  "  Artemus  Ward,"  285. 
1820.  .1872.  .Brownell,  Henry  Howard,  114. 
1 794..  1 878.  .Bryant,  William  Cullen,  96,  101,  106,  114,  137-142, 

143,  144,  147,  152,  156,  164,  167,  179,  192,  260. 
1855.  '1896.  .Bunner,  Henry  Cuyler,  198,  319. 
1849. .          •  -Burnett,  Mrs.  F.  E.  H.,  289. 
1837.  •          •  -Burroughs,  John,  265. 
1859. .          .  .Burton,  Richard,  232. 
1706.  .1788.  .Byles,  Rev.  Mather,  35. 
1674.  .1744.  .Byrd,  Colonel  William,  16. 
1844. .          .  .Cable,  George  Washington,  320. 
1648?.  1719.  .Calef,  Robert,  39. 

1782..  1850.  .Calhoun,  John  C,  113,  116,  117,252-253. 
1845. .          .  .Carleton,  Will,  109,  203. 
1820.  .  1871 .  .Cary,  Alice,  202-203. 
1824. .  1871 .  .Cary,  Phoebe,  202-203. 
1847.  •          •  -Catherwood,  Mrs.  Mary  Hartwell,  320. 
1780.  .1842.  .Channing,   Rev.   William  Ellery,  51,  101,   102,   117, 

122,  1 66,  208,  209,  211,  224,  225. 
1825. .  1896.  .Child,  Professor  Francis  James,  238. 


INDEX  OF  AUTHORS  3 

BORN      DIED 

1802. .  1880.  .Child,  Mrs.  Lydia  Maria,  250. 

1807.  .1858.  .Olivers,  Dr.  Thomas  Holley,  185-186. 
1799.  .1859.  .Choate,  Rufus,  257. 

1810. .  1888.  .Clarke,  Rev.  James  Freeman,  116,  155,  208,  222,  223. 
1777.  .1852.  .Clay,  Henry,  96,  112,  113,  250,  252,  253,  254,  255. 
1835..          ..Clemens,  Samuel  Langhorne,  "Mark  Twain,"  103, 

232,273,285,  317-318. 
1859. .          .  .Cone,  Helen  Gray,  198. 
1 6 — . .  17 — .  .Cook,  Ebenezer,  92. 
1830.  .1886.  .Cooke,  John  Esten,  116,  277. 
1816.  .1850.  .Cooke,  Philip  Pendleton,  116,  187. 

.  .Coolidge,  Susan.     See  Woolsey,  Sarah  C. 
1789. .  1851 .  .Cooper,  James  Fenimore,  101,  103,  104,  106, 152,  261, 

266-280,  315,  316,  317. 
1585. .  1652.  .Cotton,  Rev.  John,  26,  41,  46. 

.  .Craddock,  Charles  Egbert.  See  Murfree,  MaryNoailles. 
1813.  .1892.  .Cranch,  Christopher  Pearse,  187. 
1870. .          .  .Crane,  Stephen,  115. 
1854. .          .  .Crawford,  Francis  Marion,  319,  321,  324. 
1731 .  .1813.  .Crevecoeur,  J.  Hector  St.  John  de,  136,  260. 
1824.  .1892.  .Curtis,  George  William,  130,  288,  291,  292,  310. 
1787.  .1879.  .Dana,  Richard  Henry,  101,  102,  117,  234,  276. 
1815..  1882..  Dana,  Richard  Henry,  Jr.,  154,  317. 

1808.  .1825.  .Davidson,  Lucretia  Maria,  104. 
1823. .  1838.  .Davidson,  Margaret  Miller,  104. 
1808. .  1889.  .Davis,  Jefferson,  240,  252. 

1831 . .          .  .Davis,  Mrs.  Rebecca  Harding,  320. 

1864.  .          .  .Davis,  Richard  Harding,  317,  320. 

1857. .          .  .Deland,  Mrs.  Margaret,  289. 

1830.  .1886.. Dickinson,  Emily,  178-179. 

1830?.  1896.  .Dodge,  Mary  Abigail,  "  Gail  Hamilton,"  163,  232. 

1825. .          .  .Dorr,  Mrs.  J.  C.  R.,  186. 

.  .Downing,  Major  Jack.     See  Smith,  Seba. 
1795.  .1820.  .Drake,  Joseph  Rodman,  106,  190-191,  2OI. 
1680.  .1739.  .Dummer,  Rev.  Jeremiah,  (quoted)  42. 
1872. .          .  .Dunbar,  Paul  Laurence,  132. 

2A 


4  AMERICAN   LITERATURE 

BORN      DIED 

1766. .  1839.  .Dunlap,  William,  102-103. 

1752.  .1817.  .Dwight,  Rev.  Timothy,  76-78. 

1863. .          .  .Eastman,  Mrs.  Elaine  Goodale,  202. 

1 703..  1758.. Edwards,  Rev.  Jonathan,  37,  45-51,  53,  58,  68,  74, 

76,  85,  232. 

1604. .  1690.  .Eliot,  Rev.  John,  15,  26,  30. 
1 803.. 1 882.. Emerson,  Ralph  Waldo,  37,  51,  118,  122,  128,  137, 

141,  152,  156,  166-173,   179,  199,  205,  209,  210- 

224,  226,  256,  261,  262,  263,  264,  310,  313,  314. 
1794.  .1865.  .Everett,  Rev.  Edward,  117,  234,  257. 
1847.  •          •  .Fawcett,  Edgar,  319. 
1868. .          .  .Fernald,  Chester  Bailey,  319. 
1850.  .1895.  -Field,  Eugene,  204. 
i8i6..i88i..  Fields,  James  T.,  312. 
1842. .          .  .Fiske,  Professor  John,  227,  241. 
1805.  .1884.  .Flagg,  Wilson,  260. 
i6i8?.i690.  .Folger,  Peter,  36,  58. 
1847. .          •  -Foote,  Mrs.  Mary  Hallock,  136,  320. 
1759?.  1840.  .Foster,  Mrs.  Hannah  Webster,  85-86. 
1706.  .1790.  .Franklin,  Dr.  Benjamin,  36,  58-68,  69,  91,  94,  130, 

167,  214,  232,  258,  285. 
1759.  .1835.  -Freeman,  Rev.  James,  208. 
1850. .          .  .French,  Alice,  "  Octave  Thanet,"  320. 
1752. .  1832.  .Freneau,  Captain  Philip,  83-85,  108. 
1857. .          .  .Fuller,  Henry  Blake,  319. 
1833. .          .  .Furness,  Horace  Howard,  239. 
1860. .          .  .Garland,  Hamlin,  135-136. 
1805.  .1879.  .Garrison,  William  Lloyd,  117,  160,  161,  162,224,250, 

257- 

1850. .  1896.  .Gibson,  William  Hamilton,  260. 
1844. .          .  .Gilder,  Richard  Watson,  198. 
1736.  .1763.  .Godfrey,  Thomas,  82. 
1866. .          .  .Goodale,  Dora  Read,  202. 

1793. .  1860.  .Goodrich,  Samuel  Griswold,  "Peter  Parley,"  305. 
1612?.  1687.  .Gookin,  Daniel,  30. 
T6— .  .     ?    .  ."Goose,  Mother,"  Elizabeth  Vergoose  ?  40. 


INDEX  OF  AUTHORS  5 

BORN        DIED 

1852 Grant,  Judge  Robert,  232,  285. 

1822. . .  1885.  .Grant,  President  Ulysses  S.,  107,  124,  240,  245. 
1811. .  .1872.  .Greeley,  Horace,  106,  223,  240. 
1 86 1 . . .          .  .Guiney,  Louise  Imogen,  179. 

1822 Hale,  Rev.  Edward  Everett,  227,  319. 

1796. .  .  1865.  .Haliburton,  T.  C.,  "Sam  Slick,"  284. 
1790. .  .1867.  .Halleck,  Fitz-Greene,  106,  190-192,  201. 
1757. ..  1804.  .Hamilton,  Alexander,  72-74,  106,  249. 

. .  Hamilton,  Gail.     See  Dodge,  Mary  Abigail. 
?    ...16 — .  .Hammond,  John,  17. 
1847.  •  •          •  -Hardy,  Arthur  Sherburne,  321. 
1848. . .          .  .Harris,  Joel  Chandler,  132.  • 

1839 Harte,  Francis  Bret,  114,  136,  206-207. 

1846. . .          .  .Hawthorne,  Julian,  309,  317. 

1804. . .  1864.  .Hawthorne,  Nathaniel,  118,  128,  143,  152,  221,  222, 

264,  276,  299-315,  316,  317,  318. 
1838. . .          .  .Hay,  ColoneT^ohn"|"2O5,  206,  240. 
1830. .  .1886.  .Hayne,  Paul  Hamilton,  186,  187-188. 
1791. .  .1839.  .Hayne,  Robert  Young,  116,  255. 
1805. .  .1890.  .Hedge,  Rev.  Frederic  Henry,  223. 
1736.  .  .1799.  .Henry,  Patrick,  3,  71,  116,  247. 
1800. .  .  1856.  .Hentz,  Mrs.  Caroline  Lee,  116. 
1587-8.1630.  .Higginson,  Rev.  Francis,  25-26,  31,  38. 

1 823 Higginson,  Colonel  Thomas  Wentworth,  1 84,  209, 222. 

1807. . .  1865.  .Hildreth,  Richard,  242. 
1819...  1881.. Holland,  Dr.  J.  G.,  130,  197. 

1844 Holley,  Marietta,  "Josiah  Allen's  Wife,"  284. 

1763. .  .1837.  -Holmes,  Rev.  Abiel,  154. 

1809. .  .1894.  .Holmes,  Dr.  Oliver  Wendell,  114,  122,   152,  154- 

159,  167,  179,  217,^227-232,  251,  285. 
1586?. .  1647:  .Hooker,  Rev.  Thomas!^,  26,  46. 

1864 Hovey,  Richard,  177. 

1837...          ..Howells,   William   Dean,   126,  129,   130,  135,  174, 

203,  316,  319,  324-325. 
1621 . . .  1704.  .Hubbard,  Rev.  William,  21. 
1814. ..  1886.  .Hudson,  Rev.  Henry  Norman,  239. 


6  AMERICAN   LITERATURE 

BORN      DIED 

1711.  .1780.  .Hutchinson,  Governor  Thomas,  21,  239. 

1843.  •          •  'Hutton,  Laurence,  238. 

1783.  .1859.  .Irving,  Washington,  101,  102,  104,  106,  122,  143,  152, 

239,  243,  280-292,  315,  316,  317. 
1766. .  1821 .  .Irving,  William,  282. 

1831.  .1885.  Jackson,  Mrs.  Helen  Hunt,  "H.  H."  178,  275. 
1811.  .1882.  James,  Henry,  321. 

1843. .          •  James,  Henry,  Jr.,  128,  266,  319,  321-324. 
1849. .          .  Janvier,  Thomas  A.,  319. 
1745. .  1829.  Jay,  Judge  John,  72. 
1829. .          .  Jefferson,  Joseph,  134. 
1 743..  1 826.  Jefferson,  President  Thomas,  3,  73-75,  95,  96,  106, 

1 1 6,  134,  221,  242,  254. 
1849.  •          •  Jewett,  Sarah  Orne,  135,  318. 
1861. .          .  Jewett,  Professor  Sophie,  198. 
1599.  .1672.  Johnson,  Captain  Edward,  30. 

?    . .  1 6 — .  Josselyn,  John,  31,  260. 
1813.  .1853.  Judd,  Rev.  Sylvester,  261. 
1820..  1857.  .Kane,  Elisha  Kent,  317. 
1845. .          .  .Kennan,  George,  317. 
1795. .  1870.  .Kennedy,  John  Pendleton,  116,  277. 
1779.  .1843.  -Key,  Francis  Scott,  105. 
1666.  .1727.  .Knight,  Mrs.  Sarah  Kemble,  38-39. 
1842.  .1881.  .Lanier,  Sidney,  128,  188-190. 
1824.  .1893.  -Larcom,  Lucy,  179. 
1851 ..          .  .Lathrop,  George  Parsons,  114,  315. 
1851 ..          . .  Lathrop,  Mrs.  Rose  Hawthorne,  309,  315. 
1849.  'i 887.  .Lazarus,  Emma,  198. 
1824. .          .  .Leland,  Charles  Godfrey,  197. 
1720.  .1804.  .Lennox,  Mrs.  Charlotte,  80. 
1809.  .  1865.  .Lincoln,  President  Abraham,  108,  no,  1*13,  115,  122, 

123,  124,  201,  205,  214,  226,  240,  250,  257,  286. 
1807.  .1882.  .Longfellow,  Henry  Wadsworth,  114,  117,  122,  142- 

147,  150,  152,  154,   156,  167,  179,  183-184,  188, 

238,  259,  302,  305. 
1838. .         .  .Lounsbury,  Professor  Thomas  R.,  238. 


INDEX  OF  AUTHORS  / 

BORN      DIED 

1 819.. 1 89 1.. Lowell,  James  Russell,  i,  115,  117,  122,  125,  130,  137, 

147-154,  156,  167,  179,  214,  217,  222,  229,  234- 

238,  285. 

1845 ..          . .  Mabie,  Hamilton  Wright,  234. 
1751 ..  1836.  .Madison,  President  James,  3,  72,  73,  95,  96. 
1801 . .  1882.  .Marsh,  George  Perkins,  238. 
1755.  .1835.  .Marshall,  Chief  Justice  John,  116,  239. 
1600?.  1672?. Mason,  Major  John,  30. 
1 663..  1 728..  Mather,  Rev.  Cotton,  21,  25,  39,  42-45,  46,  47,  50, 

53,211,239. 

1639.  .1723.  .Mather,  Rev.  Increase,  39,  40-45,  47,  50. 
1596. .  1669.  .Mather,  Rev.  Richard,  40,  43. 
1852. .          .  .Matthews,  Professor  Brander,  238,  319. 
1720.  .1766.  .Mayhew,  Rev.  Jonathan,  208. 
1812.  .1895.  .Mayo,  William  Starbuck,  276. 
1819. .  1891 .  .Melville,  Herman,  276. 

1841. .          .  .Miller,  Cincinnatus  Hiner,  "  Joaquin  Miller,"  207. 
1831 ..          .  .Miller,  Mrs.  Harriet,  "  Olive  Thome  Miller,"  260. 
1822. .          .  .Mitchell,  Donald  Grant,  "  Ik  Marvel,"  292. 
1802.  .1864.  .Morris,  George  P.,  105,  192. 
1840..          .  .Morse,  John  Torrey,  241. 
1613. .  1685.  .Morton,  Nathaniel,  21. 
15 — . .  1 646 P.Morton,  Thomas,  31. 

1814. .  1877.  .Motley,  John  Lothrop,  240,  244-246,  249,  250,  251. 
1850. .          .  .Murfree,  Mary  Noailles,  "Charles  Egbert  Craddock," 

135- 

1832. .          .  .Nicolay,  John  George,  205,  240. 
1827. .          .  .Norton,  Professor  Charles  Eliot,  234. 
1651 ..  1716.  .Norton,  Rev.  John,  33. 

?    .  .16 — .  .Norwood,  Colonel,  9. 
1647.  •I7I7-  -Noyes,  Rev.  Nicholas,  36. 
1631 . .  1 68 1 .  .Oakes,  Rev.  Urian,  36. 

. .  Optic,  Oliver.     See  Adams,  William  T. 
1844.  .1890.  .O'Reilly,  John  Boyle,  179. 
1810..  1850.. Ossoli,  Sarah  Margaret  Fuller,  Marchioness  d',  154, 

216,  221-224,  313. 


8  AMERICAN   LITERATURE 

BORN      DIED 

1725.  .1783.  .Otis,  James,  70,  79,  249. 

1853. .          .  .Page,  Thomas  Nelson,  117,  135,  320. 

1737. .  1809.  .Paine,  Thomas,  88. 

1810. .  1860.  .Parker,  Rev.  Theodore,  117,  209-210,  216. 

1823. .  1893.  -Parkman,  Francis,  240,  246-249,  317. 

. .  Parley,  Peter.     See  Goodrich,  Samuel  Griswold. 
1819. .  1892.  .Parsons,  Thomas  William,  177. 

. .  Partington,  Mrs.     See  Shillaber,  Benjamin  P. 
1779.  .1860.  .Paulding,  James  Kirke,  106,  275,  282,  292. 
1791.  .1852.  .Payne,  John  Howard,  103,  120. 
1804.  .1894.  .Peabody,  Elizabeth  Palmer,  216,  223. 
1644.  .1718.  .Penn,  William,  30,  65,  88,  91,  161. 
J795-  •  !856.  .Percival,  James  Gates,  101. 
1586. .  1632.  .Percy,  George,  9. 
1841 ..  1896.  .Perry,  Nora,  179. 

1 754?.  1 784.  .Peters,  Mrs.  Phillis  Wheatley,  78-79,  81. 
1811.  .1884.  -Phillips,  Wendell,  118,  160,  226,  250,  251,  258. 
1835  •  •          •  -  piatt,  John  James,  203. 
1836. .          .  .Piatt,  Mrs.  Sarah  Morgan,  203. 
1802.  .1828.  .Pinkney,  Professor  Edward  Coate,  116,  186. 
i8o9..i849..Poe,  Edgar  Allan,  89,  90,  116,  130,   148,  151,  152, 
179-186,   187,   188,   192,  199,  234,  292-299,  312, 
315,  316,  317. 

1570?.  1636?. Pory,  John,  14-15. 
1796.  .1859.  .Prescott,  William  Hickling,  240,  242-244,  246,  249, 

251. 

1825.  .1897.  -Preston,  Mrs.  Margaret,  186. 
1687.  -175$'  -Prince,  Rev.  Thomas,  21,  239. 
1853 ..          . .  Pyle,  Howard,  279. 
1 744-  -1775-  -Quincy,  Josiah,  69,  70. 
1853. .          .  .Ralph,  Julian,  320. 
J773-  -1833.  -Randolph,  John,  73,  116. 
1822.  .1872.  .Read,  Thomas  Buchanan,  114,  196. 
1855 ..          •  •  Repplier,  Agnes,  234. 
1857. .          . .  Riggs,  Mrs.  Kate  Douglas  Wiggin,  289. 
1852?.         . .  Riley,  James  Whitcomb,  204. 


INDEX  OF  AUTHORS 

BORN     DIED 

1802.  .1880.  .Ripley,  George,  216,  218,  223,  225,  309. 
1847.  •          •  -Roche,  James  Jeffrey,  179. 
1838.  .  1888.  .Roe,  Rev.  Edward  Payson,  321. 
1846. .          .  .Rohlfs,  Mrs.  Anna  Katharine  Green,  294. 
1827. .          . .  Rolfe,  William  J.,  239. 
1 6 — . .     ?    .  .Rowlandson,  Mrs.  Mary,  36. 
1762. .  1824.  .Rowson,  Mrs.  Susanna  Haswell,  81,  86-87. 
1839. .  1886.  .Ryan,  Rev.  Abram  Joseph,  "  Father  Ryan,"  186. 
1816..  1887.. Saxe,  John  G.,  179. 
1839. .          .  .Schouler,  Professor  James,  241. 
1860..          ..Scollard,  Clinton,  198. 
1838. .          .  .Scudder,  Horace  E.  (Bodley  Books),  279. 
1861 . .          . .  Scudder,  Professor  Vida  D.,  238. 
1789.  .1867.  .Sedgwick,  Catharine  Maria,  104,  105. 
1652.  .  1730.  .Sewall,  Judge  Samuel,  4,  37-40. 
1818. .  1885.  .Shaw,  Henry  W.,  "Josh  Billings,"  284. 
1605. .  1649.  .Shepard,  Rev.  Thomas,  26. 
1831.  .1888.  .Sheridan,  General  Philip  H.,  240. 
1820. .  1891 .  .Sherman,  General  W.  T.,  240. 
1864. .          .  .Sherwood,  Margaret,  320. 

1814.  .1890.  .Shillaber,  Benjamin  P.,  "Mrs.  Partington,"  284. 
1791.  .1865.  .Sigourney,  Mrs.  Lydia,  104. 
1841. .  1887.  .Sill,  Professor  Edward  Rowland,  176-177. 
1806.  .1870.  .Simms,  William  Gilmore,  116,  277. 
. .  Slick,  Sam.     See  Haliburton,  T.  C. 
1838. .          .  .Smith,  Francis  Hopkinson,  319. 
1579. .  1631 .  .Smith,  Captain  John,  6-9,  239. 
1808.  .1895.  .Smith,  Rev-  Samuel  F.,  155. 
1792. .  1868.  .Smith,  Seba,  "  Major  Jack  Downing,"  284. 
1818. .          .  .South worth,  Mrs.  E.  D.  E.  N.,  116. 
1789.  .1866.  .Sparks,  Rev.  Jared,  239,  241. 
1835.  •          .  .Spofford,  Mrs.  H.  E.  Prescott,  318-319. 
1833. .          .  .Stedman,  Edmund  Clarence,  114,  173,  197,  198,  234- 

235- 

1812. .  1883.  .Stephens,  Alexander  Hamilton,  240. 
1689.  .1755.  .Stith,  Rev.  William,  239. 


10  AMERICAN   LITERATURE 

BORN      DIED 

1834. .          .  .Stockton,  Frank  R.,  295. 

1823. .          .  .Stoddard,  Mrs.  Elizabeth  Drew,  196,  318. 

1825. .          .  .Stoddard,  Richard  Henry,  173,  192-196,  201. 

1 80 1 . .  1834.  .Stone,  John  Augustus,  103. 

1819. .  1895.  .Story,  William  Wetmore,  132,  223. 

1811.  .1896.  .Stowe,  Mrs.  Harriet  Beecher,  118,  232,  289,  318. 

15 — .  .16 — .  .Strachey,  William,  9-12,  14. 

1780.  .1852.  .Stuart,  Professor  Moses,  208. 

1811.  .1874.  .Sumner,  Charles,  118,  169,  251-252. 

1845 ..          •  -Tabb,  Rev.  John  B.,  "  Father  Tabb,"  187,  188. 

1825.  .1878.  .Taylor,  James  Bayard,  173,  192-194,  196,  197,  198, 

201,  317. 

1762. .  1837.  .Tenney,  Mrs.  Tabitha,  85. 
1847. .          .  .Teuffel,  Blanche  Willis  Howard,  Baroness  von,  321. 

.  .Thanet,  Octave.     See  French,  Alice. 
1836. .  1894.  .Thaxter,  Mrs.  Celia,  178. 
1854. .          .  .Thomas,  Edith  Matilda,  204-205. 
1844. .          .  .Thompson,  Maurice,  204,  260. 
1817.  .1862.  .Thoreau,  Henry  David,  122,  128,  199,  220,  225,  260- 

265,317. 

1791.  .1871.. Ticknor,  Professor  George,  117,  234. 
1829..  1867.. Timrod,  Henry,  188. 
1642. .  1714.  .Tompson,  Benjamin,  36. 
1843.  •          •  -Torrey,  Bradford,  260. 
1862. .          .  .Trent,  Professor  William  P.,  116. 
1827. .          .  .Trowbridge,  J.  T.,  279. 
1750. .  1831 .  .Trumbull,  John,  76-78. 

.  .Twain,  Mark.    See  Clemens,  Samuel  Langhorne. 
1835.  •          •  -Tyler,  Professor  Moses  Coit,  238. 
1758. .  1826.  .Tyler,  Judge  Royall,  82,  87. 

. .  1 672?. Underbill,  Captain  John,  20,  30. 
1786.  .1870.  .Verplanck,  Gulian  C.,  101,  238. 
1813. .  1880.  .Very,  Jones,  177-178,  223. 
1827..          . .  Wallace,  General  Lew,  322. 

.  .  Ward,  Artemus.     See  Browne,  Charles  Farrar. 
1844. .          .  .Ward,  Mrs.  Elizabeth  Stuart  Phelps,  289,  319. 


INDEX  OF  AUTHORS  II 

BORN      DIED 

1579?.  1652.  .Ward,  Rev.  Nathaniel,  24,  28,  32-33. 
1829. .          .  .Warner,  Charles  Dudley,  130,  232-233,  241,  319. 
1728.  .1814.  .Warren,  Mrs.  Mercy,  79,  80. 

1732.  .1799.  .Washington,  President  George,  3,  69,  71,  72,  73,  76, 
77,  80,  81,  83,  84,  87,  95,  119,  163,  270,  281,  290, 

324- 

1782.  .1852.  .Webster,  Daniel,  113,  211,  250,  253-256. 
1758. .  1843.  -Webster,  Noah,  75,  238. 
1855. .          .  .Wendell,  Professor  Barrett,  239. 

.  .  Wheatley,  Phillis.     See  Peters,  Mrs. 
1819. .  1886. .  Whipple,  Edwin  Percy,  234-235. 
1585.  .i6i7?.Whitaker,  Rev.  Alexander,  15. 
1863. .          .  .White,  Professor  Greenough,  104. 
1 82 1?.  1 885.  .White,  Richard  Grant,  239. 

1819.  .1892.  .Whitman,  Walt,  95,  115,  137,  199-202,  238,  264. 
1824. .          .  .Whitney,  Mrs.  A.  D.  T.,  288. 
1827.  .1894.  .Whitney,  Professor  WTilliam  D  wight,  238. 
1807.  .1892.  .Whittier,  John  Greenleaf,  52,  91,  114,  118,   145,  152, 

156,  159-166,  167,  179. 

1631.  .1705. .  Wigglesworth,  Rev.  Michael,  28-30,  45. 
1789.  .1847.  -Wilde,  Richard  Henry,  105,  116,  187. 
1862. .          . .  Wilkins,  Mary  E.,  135,  318. 
1664. .  1729.  .Williams,  Rev.  John,  36-37. 
1 600?.  1 683.  .Williams,  Rev.  Roger,  26,  30. 
1806.  .1867.  .Willis,  Nathaniel  P.,  105-106,  192. 
1766.  .1813.  .Wilson,  Alexander,  259. 
1835. .          .  .Wilson,  Mrs.  Augusta  Evans,  116. 
1812  ;  1875.  .Wilson,  Vice-President  Henry,  240. 
1856. .          .  .Wilson,  Professor  Woodrow,  97. 
1595. .  1655. .  Winslow,  Governor  Edward,  21,  31. 
1831 . .  1897. .  Winsor,  Justin,  241. 
1836. .          .  .Winter,  William,  238. 

1588.  .1649.  .Winthrop,  Governor  John,  22-24,  3°»  45>  239- 
1591?.  1647.  .Winthrop,  Mrs.  Margaret,  32. 
1828. .  1861 .  .Winthrop,  Theodore,  318. 
1652.  .1725.  .Wise,  Rev.  John,  35,  68. 


12  AMERICAN   LITERATURE 

BORN      DIED 

1679. .  1767. .  Wolcott,  Governor  Roger,  49. 

1580?.  1639.  .Wood,  William,  31,  260. 

1855. .          .  .Woodberry,  Professor  George  E.,  177. 

1785.  .1842.  .Woodworth,  Samuel,  105. 

1720.  .  1772. .  Woolman,  John,  90-94,  159. 

183-. .          . .  Woolsey,  Sarah  C,  "  Susan  Coolidge,"  179. 

1845.  •I894-  .Woolson,  Constance  Fenimore,  280. 

1784.  .1865.  .Worcester,  Joseph  Emerson,  301. 


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